Russell Westbrook happy to be wanted and Clippers up to challenge of

Russell Westbrook entered his career’s latest chapter Wednesday through a side door of the Clippers’ practice facility, taking a seat on a podium surrounded by more cameras and microphones than have shown up at the Playa Vista headquarters in five months.

For the next 10 minutes, when Westbrook wasn’t smiling, he was reiterating a promise.

“Whatever they need me to do,” Westbrook said, “I’ll do it and do it to the best of my ability.”

Westbrook is a Clipper because coach Tyronn Lue, stars Paul George and Kawhi Leonard and top basketball executive Lawrence Frank still are believers in the 34-year-old former most valuable player’s abilities. They believe those abilities will fill in gaps and provide things the team lacked, from attacking defenses with drives into the paint to rebounding and athleticism.

“We want Russ to be Russ,” Lue said, “and so if he’s doing too much, or not enough, I’ll let him know. But we wanted him to be the player that he is, you know, the MVP, the Hall of Famer, everything he brings every single night.”

The Clippers are his fifth team in five seasons, the most recent stop a 130-game sample size with the Lakers in which the heralded potential of a starring trio with Westbrook, LeBron James and Anthony Davis never materialized. By the end of his tenure this month, James was describing disappointment that the Lakers had not been able to trade for Kyrie Irving — a trade that would have been possible only by including the salary of Westbrook.

Days later, after Westbrook had been jettisoned to Utah, attached with a first-round pick, George — a defender of his former Oklahoma City teammate during Westbrook’s up-and-down tenure with the Lakers — and starting forward Marcus Morris Sr. publicly campaigned for Westbrook’s signing.

George hoped Westbrook would see…