KEVIN DING ✔ @KevinDing Byron Scott believes half of Lakers fans want them to lose these days: "The half that wants us to lose, that bothers me a lot."
I think that may be why he's pushing so hard to win, to stick it to the fans that want losses. Not really any other explanation for his actions, other than ignorance. I'm fairly certain it's a lot more than half, too.
LOLOL. Oh, Byron! So, you were trying to win the whole year with your antiquated schemes both offensively and defensively, rotations that made no sense, and people thought that was you trying to tank? Nope. You're just a crappy coach, and now there is a possibility the players are motivated enough to win enough so we won't procure a top 5 pick. So, Byron if you suck at coaching and can't even be come up with a rotation to develop younger players and lose more then what you are good for, Byron? Not to mention, you're not looking at the long-term picture? Adding a cost controlled rookie contract will help you, Byron or you could trade it for an impact player? Or you just stupid, Byron?
If Antoni had this same roster, we'd have more wins. After re-watching games that we've played 2 and 3 times, Antoni is a better coach from an X's and O's standpoint. Also, we had 27 wins last year and we're not getting that this year; the FO has fumbled their last 3 coaching hires badly. 2 relied on Kobe so much that he ultimately blew out his Achilles; one overplayed Kobe and might cost us our pick. Although, I'm still fairly confident we'll get our pick. Nevertheless, the FO coaching hires get worse and worse...
I mentioned this in another thread, but I think D'Antoni had more talent to work with. Especially his first season.
In his first season he had a completely dysfunctional team, with Dwight who refused to run P&R with one of the best P&R guards of all time. On top of that, Dwight did not like Kobe, did not want to work with Kobe and wanted us to run offense through him (Dwight), when he was recovering from back surgery and had zero offensive moves. Yes, MDA is a better X and Os coach then Byron. Which is totally irrelevant at this point. And Byron is wrong: way more then half of Lakers fans want us to lose as much as possible now. He wants to jeopardize our future by winning meaningless games against trash teams right now. He seriously pisses me off: he can't really coach, he alienates players (Boozer, Hill, Swag) and can't even lose well. I'm not sure if he can do anything well and, although I'll give him another year, because every coach deserves that -- I can't wait to see him gone.
Good point. X's and O's may be irrelevant except when you're comparing their respective resumes and what each coach has accomplished which is what I was attempting to do for those that say Byron is a better coach; I don't believe it, and I never will. On topic, the disdain for Byron will only get exacerbated when/if he loses this pick. FYI, Kanter is a game-time decision.
I was just joking... I'm starting to really dislike Byron, but I hated 'Antoni from the start. He did know how to lose when it was time though, we won many games early last season, but by season's end when we wanted to help our draft position we were losing games by 20-30 points in embarrassing fashion. We need that again right now. Byron shouldn't be bothered by fans wanting to lose, he should be impressed that fans that hate to lose would accept it as necessary for improvement.
By the way, if the Lakers fall out of 4th they absolutely don't deserve to keep the pick. If that happens it will be because when they had a chance to push for 3rd or even 2nd and guarantee that they keep it they instead let Byron's pride, arrogance, and stupidity rule the day. There is no room in this organization for the kind of backwards, stuck in 1987 reasoning we have seen over the past week and a half. Should they keep the pick through lottery luck after Byron drags them to 7th I'll be happy, but if they lose it the silver lining would be that it should hasten Byron's departure. I used to appreciate that Byron was at least a solid puppet/transition coach who could lead the tank while saying the right things to the media. Now though, well I'm not sure there us any coming back from the damage he has done. Even if the Lakers keep their pick but it drops to 5th, and they miss out on Okafor/Towns/Russell/Mudiay the blame will have to fall on Byron. What a mess he has made.
PHX traded the pick to acquire Brandon Knight. Philly has it now. I'd still like to get it, but at least it won't go to a division rival.
..and quite a bit of the disfunction on that team was caused by MDA. And as much as I cant stand him, Dwight's camp had a point. Building the offense around an injured Nash instead of Dwight (or anyone else honestly) was just dumb.