Read the Kevin Ding article he wrote. Luke killed it in the interview so he and the Lakers canceled the rest of their interviews
Mike Brown also killed it in his interview with his DVDs But don't get me wrong, in no way am I against this hire like I was the last 3 coaches. Luke is the best coach for this team and franchise at the right time.
Yeeees. Shows you how great the meeting had to be. No 5 time interviews like in b0ron's case. I'm more than optimistic going forward. Now, do something to bring JVG as an assistant and i'll be extatic. With all that being said... Stay AWAY Phil .
That Ding article is a good real, as he usually is. What sticks out to me right away is that he wanted to be here. We wanted him, and he wanted to be here. That's a long meeting to sit and talk basketball and your coaching gameplan, they said he killed it in the meeting and it appears so. Not only did the Lakers FO call off all other interviews, Luke did as well. Other teams were rumored to be interviewing or wanting to interview him as well, Knicks, Rockets, Kings to name a few, but he didn't even bother, took our job immediately. Love it. Also, check the new sig in tribute, it's Luke and what most Laker fans want to do to him right now lol.
my only concern with luke is that phil might somehow end up back in LA and turn luke into his pawn by instilling his own guys as assistants and running the triangle
Yeah it's weird I've been a huge fan of Phil my whole life. Read his books, looked up to him etc. But I don't know if I want him back with the Lakers. He's been a great coach and he's brought so much good to us. But it might be good to naturally progress from the past and let course take its action. Phil's the GOAT of coaches and Jerry West's the GOAT of basketball ops. But just like Jerry wasn't a great coach maybe Phil isn't a great manager of b-ball operations. I like this fresh slate thing with Luke. Might be good to keep it that way. (I can't believe I'm saying this).
Same BUT this will be less likely if we have a good season. Not necessarily Playoffs or anything, mostly just a working system that team and fans embrace. Then Phil might still come back, but without imposing the triangle and THEN he could still be an asset. What do you guys think?
Now with Luke in we have major work to do on defense and I was thinking about the reasons we sucked so bad last year. So you know how there's 2 sides to an argument and then the truth? 1)Byron was a s*** job of a coach and couldn't teach a lick of defense if his life depended on it. 2) Our players are a bunch of s*** job defenders and were going to suck it up even if Thibs was coaching. Or the truth? Byron was a s*** job and we had a bunch of young guns with no identity, no knowledge nor a role model who could instill an iota of good practice in them. Was Byron that bad? Were our players that bad? Are we going to get that much better with Luke and adding a FA? Just some food for thought.
I'd say it's a combination of both. Some of our guys just can't defend a lick. Huertas, Kelly, Clarkson, Kobe, Randle, Lou, and to a degree D'Angelo. The young guys still have a chance to improve, but they weren't going to under Byron a guy who just tells them to man up. On the other hand guys who have been good defenders even looked porous at times. Hibbert and Bass. The young guys have to work on their individual defense, watch film, but also we need to preach and teach team defense and have a defensive scheme. If we have a shot blocking presence like Whiteside funnel things toward him so he doesn't have to leave the paint if not funnel things to the baseline where the help will be. Also need to improve as far as our guards pick and roll defense. Too often they get buried on those picks and almost every time end up with a mis match on a switch. Can't happen.
Sooo happy. Awesome news to wake up to today. I was worried the FO was going to screw this up, but kudos to them. Lakers want Luke and Luke wants the Lakers, couldn't be happier with this outcome. Now, on to the assistants.
Luke's excitement is another huge plus IMO. Shows he is really going to put everything into the job. I can't lie. I'm pumped. I think we got our answer to guys like Brad Stephens and Snyder.
