The Official Byron Scott Coach Thread 2014-2015

just going to post this too. Especially the one where he decided to have Hill run out and at least make a threat to double team Harden to get the ball out of his hands. It really worked great and was a fine adjustment on Byron's part.

 

It looks like he might have been biding his time waiting for Nick Young to return. Or maybe Nick's return really has been that revolutionary for this team's outlook.

Either way, with Nick back in the lineup Byron's offense looks better and the defense has improved. Can't be mad about the last two games except...

Kobe's minutes are still too high. Some damn production out of Wesley offensively would help. The return of Ellington should help as well.

 

three point shooting doesnt win games

 

I don't care if Boozer has 80 points on 40/40 shooting. If he doesn't play defense, bench him. The same goes for Kobe. I love Kobe, but if he plays defense like he did today, bench him. I don't care who you are. You need to play on both ends of the ball.

 

Lots of talking, not a lot of doing.

Is he just a figurehead?

 

Byron, Byron, Byron.

 

Hard to argue against this Doc. Strong points. I'll give him the rest of the year. Lord knows we gave D' Antoni two seasons. But, yeah, I don't understand letting good shooting three point teams have open looks all night. And keeping Davis on short minutes makes absolutely no sense. Too much vet love for sure. I think the offense will look a little better now that Swaggy P is here. But inserting Davis would really help the starters to give Lin a p and r partner. Lin looks lost half the time with Booz. He looks great with Davis. They are really in synch. And absolutely way too many minutes for Kobe right now. Play Clarkson some of those minutes, Swaggy P, X, whoever.

 

Absolutely. Except that D'Antoni's philosophy will get you some wins, because once in blue moon your guys will get scorching hot and you can't do anything to defend that. Run, get a quick shot and hope it works. For some teams, it would actually work great. Deep playoffs, but probably no championship. Put MDA on the right team... he's a decent coach. Not great, but he'll do. If something goes wrong -- he'll experiment until he finds something that does work. Unfortunately for us (and him), the Lakers were simply not his kind of team, and on top of that he's probably not the most likeable guy in the world. He's certainly not Phil.

With Byron's coaching philosophy it's a total disaster. It's all about defense on paper, but no one plays it. His offensive ideas would work on a team that has played together a long time, and not this random collection of veterans and newbies. Therefore -- you can't get hot with this type of offense, but to "compensate" for it, you play the worst defense in the league. Or if it's not the worst (I haven't looked at the numbers lately), then it's the worst for a Laker team, ever. Again, I loved Byron as a player, but this is probably not going to work. He's not a good coach, and I don't think he is the long-term solution for us anyway.

But I'm OK with that for now, because we need to lose many games this season in order to get younger, better, and attract free agents in the future. We don't need to tank at all. Just reduce Boozer's and Kobe's minutes, sit Price, and play the young guys as much as possible. If you need more help, D-League is your friend.

 

Question for all the Scott critics... how do you isolate the problem being Byron's defensive schemes vs. the terrible players we have on this team?

As you all know defense is a team concept. What I'm seeing is our older and most terrible players turning their head and their man slips to the basket for an easy pass/layup, or being run off of a screen and the player that is supposed to rotate is slow to react, or botched recovery from a scramble on a play leading to an open three pointer, etc. I'm not of the opinion Byron's defensive philosophies are fantastic, but realistically, this is what you get when you have 3rd string players starting and playing big minutes. I've also seen some stretches where the players got in sync and switched properly and the defense looked really good, but that was with a very specific defensive lineup.

Kobe- 36yo. Slower feet.
Boozer- Terrible defender. Never been good really but terrible in his old age
Wes- Dumb as a brick BBall IQ wise
Lin- Average at best
Hill- Decent man defender. Not great as a help defender. Little to no rim protection and light weight.

That's our starting lineup folks. Terrible players make terrible plays. Perhaps a fantastic defensive coach might be able to figure out ways to polish a turd and make the team not look as terrible as they are, but I don't think it's realistic to expect it. Byron isn't a great coach so far, but I think the problem starts and ends with the players. If Byron was coaching a mediocre team they wouldn't look nearly as bad defensively IMO.