Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

Perspective people.

What should the season after a 17 win, worst in Lakers franchise history, look like?

It seems like people knew going into this season what we were getting into. It was going to be ugly.

Expectations were realistically low. People thought doubling our win total from last year would be a big win for this season. But then fans either got their hopes up because of an unexpectedly good start, the players loving Walton, and his coaching style being a breath of fresh air, or actually seeing the losses rack up is wearing on fan's enthusiasm. It also seems like fans want the improvement of this team to look a certain way, where you can see statistical improvements in all categories across the board. Whatever the reason, you guys are loosing the perspective of just how bad we were last season, just how long that is going to take to turn around, and the fact that the turn around isn't going to necessarily look the way you envisioned.

Fact is nothing has changed for the worse since preseason. Our record right now had been remarkably, and accurately predicted by most fans (at least on LB). We thought this team would be better this season, and they are. 15/30 is still way better than we were last year at this point in the season.

Do we still suck? Of course! We realistically knew we would before the season started. There should never have been any expectations, other than seeing some improvement in record, and youth development. This is season one, of a multiple season rebuild from the ground up.

We knew this was going to be a multiple year project to recover from the worst season in franchise history before the season began. Nothing has changed for the worse

We've had some terrible losses, but we've also beaten the Warriors, Rockets, Clippers, Hawks, Thunder, and Grizzlies to name a few.

We need to be long sighted about this season, Luke and this team. I know it's hard to watch, and we all wanted to see them continue to play 500 ball like they did at the start of the season, but you have to be realistic in understanding that kind of change doesn't happen overnight.

Luke is doing a fine job.

This is what it looks like for a coach trying to salvage a team from the worst record in franchise history. It's not going to be pretty year one.

 

As I said, In year one of a rebuild like this, improvement shouldn't be expected to look a certain way IMO. This team was too bad to expect Luke to be able to fix all of these problems all at once.

We are better this season. We might even double up our wins from last season. But consistency on incrimental improvement isn't going to come in one season.

This season we improve on offense, and have a few games of mediocre defense sprinkled in between terrible games. Next seasons hopefully we sign some defensive minded players, and defensive assistant coach, and improve enough to play mediocre defense all the time, and make the playoffs. With player growth and a few additions, we increase our playoff position the season after that, and so on and so on.

This season is just a stepping stone, but it is a step up from last year.

 

I kind of disagree. i think we played on an emotional high for the first few weeks and the hot hands of Lou and Swaggy helped a lot. Lou has reverted back to the player he always has been and the emotion has worn off. Since our 10 and 10 start we're 5 and 20. That's a worse pace than last year's abysmal season. And now we're going back to the blowout loss routine. I'm not blaming Luke nor am I vindicating Scott. But we are not actually showing real, sustainable improvement. We had an emotional hotstreak to start the season. That's all. Since then we are the same team as last season.

 

But the emotional high was working. Players were giving effort, and running the offense and defense the way they should have and we were winning. It showed that Luke's strategies are pretty sound if these players give their all most games. Was it an emotional high, or was it that the sets and strategies were fresh in players minds at the start of the season, and they reverted back into old habits as the season wore on?

IMO the injuries, broken rotations as a result, along with the hardest schedule in the league had the players revert back into their old terrible habits. Now Luke needs to reset and get them to give that effort they had at the beginning of the season, but I'm not sure how you do that with young players without a training camp.

 

Luke benched all of the starters for having s bad start just last night. I want to see more of that too, but it's a start

 

Again, we NEED an assistant coach that actually knows how to organize a defensive system.

But, I am 100% still on the Luke train.

 

I can't disagree with that statement anymore than I already do, not possible.

 

Precisely. That emotional burst in the beginning of the season is what led us to 10-10 record. Are they really not very good and just outworked teams for a bit? Obviously the energy they came out with isn't going to be sustainable for every game of an 82 game season, but lately it's like they make up their mind before the game even starts as to whether or not they are going to go for it.

I am NOT blaming Luke. In the beginning of the season when they were putting in an effort and locked in, the offense they were executing was lightyears ahead of anything they could have imagined under Boron. I am upset with D'Lo mostly. His attitude and energy seems to feed the rest of the team. If he has it going and he's working, everyone seems to follow his lead. If you are the team's leader, you have to bring it every night. He wanted to be the leader, now he's gotta act like it.