Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

Agree, man, and we both wanted Luke. He was our guy when we hired him. Brooklyn sucks a**, but they look a heck of a lot better than we do out there schematically.

 

what if he brings back Byron?

 

Stats on how we sucked defensively and overall the last season(s)

http://www.nba.com/article/2017/10/...n/?collection=writer/archive/john-schuhmann#/

 

Wow. Those stats are depressing.

 

i don't see how you hold him accountable now. i think he was given the job with the idea that he was building a long-term foundation and that wins weren't expected until a) players got older or b) we got superstars. neither has happened, so...25 wins it is.

i'm not saying he's been great, but as i said before: i'm not sure who solves this mess of a roster. punting this year for 2018 FA then firing the coach for not producing? nah. had the lakers, say, signed george hill or traded for paul george or did anything that indicated they wanted to win sooner, i'd think luke's seat may get warm. but he should be comfy right now.

 

I think he's finding out that coaching a championship roster with seasoned vets with all around skills and a desire to play defense is a little different than

• wiping butts and snotty noses
• changing diapers
• teaching fundamentals
• explaining basics
• tolerating low I.Q. players

He'll be given some time to turn this thing around, but if this season ends on the same note as last year, changes HAVE to be made on the defensive side of the ball.

 

starting with personnel. either that or the team needs to commit to an offense-first system. no clue what the architect of this shanty had in mind.

 

Luke’s job should definitely be safe. Criticism of him is fair though. He’s a young coach so he’s going to experience some growing pains too. My overall confidence in him hasn’t gone down but there are things he needs to work on.

 

Luke's 1st year has a huge asterisks next to it....and its the same reason why I give Byron a pass as well (Kobe's injury instantly turned us into a bad team and then he had to deal with all the lames that were on our team while Kobe attempted to come back from one devastating injury to the next).

Lets not ignore what the franchise was doing under Jimbo and Mitch....we was tanking. How can anybody deny that. It was THE narrative for the last few years. Fan bases divided...players/coaches/FO with their empty talk about how they weren't about that life...come on man...even when Rob and Magic took over, we traded arguably our best player to the Rockets for yet another draft pick in a deep draft class. We wanted Zo and he wanted us. We were going to get that pick and you can't ignore that when you look back at Luke's 1st year here. If anything, his 1st year was used in building relationships with the players, but in terms of grooming them into winners...how could you, when you got the weight of those ping pong Balls pushing you down the standings.

This is the season we judge him on, cause last year we were playing rope-a-dope with Philly, having them believe they actually had a shot to bag 2 lottery picks...




...and then we all know how that ended.




Btw: if our defensive numbers do not improve significantly this year...someone needs to get fired. It won't be Luke, but his assistants are not safe (also you can damn well bet some of these players are for sure getting traded). Hiring Rosenfeld should put everybody on notice. The FO ain't f***ing around with that 30th ranked D no more.

 

I'm sorry but pre-season is on Luke.

Our guys have come out extremely flat and unprepared. They focused solely on defense and yet we're still a mess on that end and now, we're just a mess on BOTH ends.

Also, the hyping stops now. Magic and Rob and others in the Lakers org need to stop hyping up guys like Ingram, Randle and Nance. It creates unrealistic expectations and unnecessary pressure on the young guys.

I still have faith in Luke to become a great coach...but if Lakers don't improve this year, he will be shown the door. Let's not forget that at the end of the day, Luke was Mitch and JIMMY BOY's hire....so Magic would love to have an opportunity to pick his own coach...

 

...byron scott!

 

If that happened I'm seriously done with the franchise for my own mental health.

 

Can Magic and Rob more covertly tamper with Rick Carlisle and convince him to come be Luke's top assistant?

 

Luke being good cop / bad cop all by himself .....

 

Who is the assistant, Luke, that is tasked with this? Of all the guys and buds you hired who is that guy? Has he ever mentioned it? Does anyone recall any of the beat writers asking him this? And if so were there any assistant coach gurus on other teams we could have requested permission to speak with, or in collegiate programs that might have been ..... or might be better going forward?

 

I don't think Luke has a defense guy. Without looking it up I think Shaw is the right hand man and everyone else is like a players development coach.