The Official Byron Scott Coach Thread 2014-2015

When your argument is that Byron should be playing Sacre because it would improve our defense, it should illustrate my point even more. We have little to no choices here.

Starting Sacre instead of Hill wouldn't solve a thing.

 

No I think playing Sacre would do nothing of note. Putting Boozer on the bench improves our defense.. slightly... and sacrifices offense as Sacre takes so many of his minutes. We don't have a solution here.

 

Davis already plays lots of minutes. The only place we get many more minutes to replace Boozer is sliding Hill to the PF and playing Sacre more as you suggested. That's not a solution to improve the team. Sacre is a 3rd stringer at best and you're talking about increasing his minutes. What do you think will improve by substituting one 3rd stringer for another?

I'd love to play Clarkson more, but it's probably arm chair wishful thinking right now. The reality is coaches usually don't play rookies much unless they show to be a franchise player.

 

It's not going to make a difference. Sacre is a third string player. He's just not that good.

Davis can play more minutes, but it's not like he's not already playing a bunch. Say we move his minutes from 22 to 32. Does that solve things? Would that make much of a difference? No. It's a slight adjustment that doesn't change much. We have a bad team. The little changes you're suggesting won't change that or even improve things much.

 

Look when I made that post.... things have changed since then. I can't defend him when he's been doing some of the things out there such as that zone last night against Dallas. He's not making the right changes WITH THIS SQUAD.And yes, I too thought he would not play favorites with Kobe. I just hope there is more that goes on beyond what we the fans see, which in the grand scheme of things isn't a whole lot.

I still believe that having better talent/players would change some of his current philosophies.

 

To clarify, don't think that I don't think Byron carries any of the blame. I think he plays Kobe too much, and should play Clarkson more, etc. I just feel like Scott is getting way more blame for how this team is performing compared to his actual coaching job. He's not great so far, but he's not that bad either. IMO Scot has been an average coach working with a terrible team.

He's getting more blame here than he should.

 

If Thibs or Pop - hell, even PJ had this team, he'd run

Lin/Price - either can be a solid defender
Kobe/Clarkson - Kobe's going to need help 1 on 1, but he can defend in a scheme
Wes/Young - they can both defend
Davis/Boozer - both have defended by using length (Ed) or quickness (Boozer)
Hill/Sacre - both are solid defenders

Honestly, maybe I'm crazy, but I think we should be an above average defensive team. I don't see why we can't be a defense that ranks 8-15 overall.

 

Yes. I've mentioned this a few times in the WMC thread. Lakers are on pace to be the worst defensive team in NBA history.

Pure defensive rating is not the best measurement though imo because of how rule changes affect how efficient teams can be. That's why I looked at defensive rating relative to the league average, and yes, we are still the worst in NBA history. Lol. Actually, we're more than 50% worse than the second worst team ever.

 

Barns, our players are more than capable of playing passable team D. Except, maybe, Boozer; but you could probably hide him without too much trouble, if we had some defensive schemes at least and if our coach held them accountable. Lin, Price, even old Kobe (with some help) and Davis are capable defenders. So is Sacre, sparingly, against slower centers. Young has improved tremendously and is crazy athletic. So is Wes, although he has no BB IQ. But a true defensive coach would make a defensive bulldog out of Wes, if there is even remote possibility. If not -- he would not play, period.

Hill does OK too. Nothing spectacular, but overall... they should not be the worst defensive Laker team I have ever seen. Something is seriously wrong there. They get scored on more then a totally depleted MDA team -- and they don't have the running offense or "spread-the-floor" schemes to at least try to compensate for it.

I just don't think Scott knows what he is doing with this team. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see what he brings to the table. I will admit I am disappointed, because I expected Byron to be a better coach than MDA. I don't know why actually. D'Antoni has a better basketball mind, although he is not as likeable; but he is more creative, for sure, and he wasn't afraid to bench someone's a** if he did not fit his vision. Except Kobe, of course. Nobody can bench, uhhh... I mean rest Kobe for some reason.

 

I agree.

 

As I count it, we have two good defenders in Young and Davis. I don't see them making many mistakes of their own accord or getting torched by their man. Everyone else on average, is either an average defender or terrible defender or switches between average and terrible from game to game. Great defenders mask other players deficiencies by injecting themselves into the play and making an impact. We have no one of that caliber, so when our terrible defenders mess up it's an automatic score for the other team. It's accentuated by the fact that most of these guys haven't been playing together very long so they don't know each other's defensive weaknesses and tendencies very well. I'm not seeing terrible defensive schemes, I'm seeing lots of individual mistakes by players that no one can mask because no one on this team is good enough defensively to cover. Lots of getting turned around the wrong direction from biting on crossovers, lots of getting caught looking the wrong way, lots of poor boxouts, lots of slow reading of plays and rotations, etc. How do you isolate those problems as being a coaching problem? Those problems can be masked by players that can help, but we don't have any great help defenders on the team excluding Davis for weak side blocks.

i have no doubt a coach like Pop could make us look better, but that's comparing our coach to one of the best of all time, and I firmly believe even he couldn't polish this turd enough to get this team to the playoffs. I just don't think it's realistic to think Byron could do a lot better with what we've got.

 

I am simply saying that, with 2 good defenders, a bunch of average defenders and some good defensive schemes, this should not be the worst defensive team in the league. If the players are making individual mistakes, it's the coach's job to fix this. The team looks like they did not do anything in the training camp. And I do agree that Byron probably can't do much better with this group, and that precisely is the problem. A better coach could get more out of this group. But there is no better coach that is available right now, is there?