Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

Just put Bullius on Murray from the opening tip. That would put that punk in his place.

 

Luke will end up with several COY awards during his career.

He’s only 4 years older than LLLLL, and he’s just beginning his career. He’ll be fine.

 

So, was Luke playing the long game, benching Julius in the beginning of the year to motivate him? Or did it take Luke longer to figure out what us fans saw from day 1?

 

I think Luke did what he genuinely thought was best for the team at the time. Even if he was playing the long game, Julius would have developed regardless of the treatment. He's a self-motivated kid.

What I'm certain of is that it cost us games. We'd be in mix for the 8th seed had Julius started from the jump.

 

Luke learned from Phil. What he did with Julius was planned from the start.

 

Yep, I agree with nearly all of what @Weezy said, except the intent in the design of motivating Jules to become a better overall player and teammate. That is such a Phil Jax thing to do that I'm pretty sure Luke had every intent in pushing Jules to the limit. We all know that Luke still talks to Chief Zen, so I do think starting Lance/Kuz over Jules was a way to get the bull angry and motivated. "I don't care if you worked on your body over the summer and are scoring at will...if you don't fly around on defense, your a** is on the bench backing up a guy that will."

Nance statistically is better than Jules on defense this year, so that led to him earning the starting spot. Jules knew in order to crack the starting lineup, he had to really highlight his defensive energy, plus add the pressures of being in a contract year, and the bull went full on rage when he got his time on the court. Still, Luke was hard on him and that led to quick yanks back to the bench...but I'm sure you're all aware that you're normally hardest on the one's where you see the most potential that you can help them realize. Luke is doing exactly that, but then the injuries happened, the schedule tightened up and we went on a losing streak. The team had a closed door meeting and I think that led to even Nance going to Luke to say, Jules deserves the start and I'll come off the bench.

Jules has even alluded to wanting to be more "coachable" cause he knows just how much of a better player he's become from being short-leashed by Luke.

It appears that Luke's next project is Kuz.

Also the narrative that we would have won more if Jules started the season is highly dubious. First off, we needed to figure out how to play with each other, since the roster overhaul led to many new faces figuring out how to play with each other. Being super young, strength of schedule, dealing with injuries and an abridged training camp added to those early season growing pains. Then consider that throwing Jules into the starter spot without him really earning it not only is a disservice to the players who do earn it, but is also a disservice to Jules' own player development.

If we had roughly 3 more wins and were in legit contention to earn the 8th seed, I believe Luke is Coach of the Year and that discussion would be much louder.

That being said, I'm interested to see how both Jules and Luke approach Denver tomorrow. If we don't come out and make an example out of them, I truly believe our slim playoff hopes are gone and I don't have much invested in a team that isn't playoff bound. So I'll reconvene with y'all during the summer.

Btw: slick mention of Luke by LaBron....especially with all the noise that he would want Luke replaced by Fitz if he was to consider coming here.

 

I wanna believe this but...Julius had been doing those things all year man. The difference was playing time. Yes, he had his mishaps here and there but 8 minutes in a game at one point? That's inexcusable. Also, even when he was playing WELL, we were benching him. That's the part I didn't get.

The dude came into camp in the best shape of his life and his reward was getting benched and playing 18 minutes a game (yes, at one point, he was at this average on MPG).

I think it was a combination of having too many guys at his position (Nance, Lopez, Kuzma), the front office not being sure about Randle, and Luke also not believing in Randle. What changed? That players only meeting in January. THAT is what sparked the change. Since then, the Lakers have been on an absolute tear and they've been led by none other than Julius Randle.

 

I remember the Gametime discussions man. I said that benching Julius only will work if we're WINNING. The minute we start LOSING though? It's going to become a problem. And it was.

I just feel like Julius did nothing to deserve getting benched to begin with. I love Nance, but he's not a starter in this league. Julius is and he was arguably our best player the year before. We didn't give him the opportunity to improve upon that until second half of the season, and now we're seeing what we probably could have seen much earlier in the season given the opportunity.

At the end of the day, I'm very happy with Luke as a coach. if he's going to get credit for it, then he obviously did something right with Julius. As a fan, i'm only calling it how I see it. But obiouvsly we don't see the practices and what the coaches see from film, etc. Luke and Randle have a great relationship and it's very similar to Luke and Draymond. I really hope they continue to build that relationship and that Luke fights hard to keep Randle on the roster.

 

If Jules was the best player of the team last year, that means he "led" us to a last placed defensive team. How do you get your "leader" to right that ship? You coach him!

Bench his a** till he gets it. Tough love to make sure he understands the untapped potential he has.

Now that Jules is getting it, the leash comes off and Kuz is next.

 

Yeah well you bench him for someone who is clearly better and I don't think Nance was clearly better!

But anyway, there's two ways to look at it now and I'm just glad that he's beasting it and we're winning and he's making it a tough choice for the front office.