Do you want Phil likely back to replace him if Jeanie does that after the season? Likely also lose Ryan West if that happens? My personal opinion of course.
Jim had to agree to eat Boron's salary and fire his sorry a** early, go for it & lock up Luke in the tiny window we likely had before some other more attractive team did and agree to pay whatever salary was needed. The Luke hiring has changed for the incalculable better the future of the franchise going forward. See first six games and believe what your eyes are telling you. Speaking of Luke's salary and years deal, have there ever been any published numbers on that yet? I've never seen any.
It was actually an option year on Byron's contract, so they just opted not to pick it up. It didn't cost us any extra to get rid of him, so there's that.
Don't want to go off topic too much, but I still remember all the heat Jim got for reshuffling the scouting department. I am not a fan of the way it was done, but the results are nothing short of spectacular. The man deserves some credit, lots of it actually.
Ahhh .... that's right. Still they made a huge franchise altering decision for the next decade or two. Got themselves a superstar coach that will deliver results and be a magnet for FA's when they now come in and sit at the table in meetings going forward.
I think it's 5 / 25. Which is perfect, IMO. High end salary, but for a franchise printing cash and trying to get back on top, it's right in line where it should be. The # years is perfect too. If it was 3 and we were horrible this year, he goes into next season with an enormous amount of pressure to win. Year 3 he's a lame duck. They knocked this hire and contract out of the park.
OK so we have learned something new about how Luke is going to coach during and since the GS game. Certainly different from Phil. And also requires the "team" first frame of mind from everyone. Winning is the goal and they will pull for teammates 100% whether they are in the game or not. Very exciting to me!! Luuke is each game keeping a fine pulse on who is hot and playing great. More minutes that night. As we saw with GS as well as DAR started and played he didn't get his normal minutes. Lou was playing great and took care of the ball in crunch time. Luke said this clearly as well in one of the interviews today or last night.
What a gigantic difference a good coach makes, its crazy. We went from the worst coach of all time to the one of the best up and coming coaches.
Sheeesh, everyone should know this one already: When we're doing good it's because of Mitch. When we're doing bad it's Jim's fault.
It is WAY early in the season, and the Suns are a team we should beat, but still, my goodness this team is night and day 7 games in. It took us TWENTY FIVE games for us to reach 4 wins last season, and we won 3 games in a row ONCE. I don't see playoffs for us, we are young and will have growing pains, and ups and downs, and the best teams will beat us down time to time, but we are racking up crazy point totals. Luke is playing lineups I have almost no issues with, he's putting guys in the roles they are meant to be in, and our ball movement and offensive flow is crazy in contrast to last season. Last season we looked lost constantly, this season the ball is moving all over the place, almost everyone is in sync, we look like a TEAM. Everyone seems to have their role and when some guys are off, others pick up the slack. I mean freakin Nick Young is ballin, Lou Williams is dynamite off the bench, Black and Nance are bringing the energy, Ingram is so long and disruptive on defense. Russ has been up and down, as has JC, but the effort is there, and Randle looks like a different player than preseason. And Mozgov, dude is working his behind off, we may have more dunks already than all of last season from our unselfish team play. Luke is a good coach, plain and simple, B0ron would still be screwing this up somehow, but Luke knows how to use his players. We aren't a playoff team yet and won't sustain this IMO, but still, Luke was the right hire and he's taking us in the right direction, team ball, which we need to play as we have no true star. Thoroughly enjoying watching this team play so far, they remind me of the early 90's Lakers with Van Exel, Jones, Vlade and those dudes before we got Shaq and Kobe. We weren't gonna win with them, but they were fun to watch.
Really starting to see Ingram in more of an Odom type roll, his inside passing ain't bad. Bringing the ball up a lot, great definite point forward in the making.
Jim has been a good owner for the Lakers. Sadly ESPN and particularly Steven A. have been on his nuts for years now. Jim is terribly flawed by his coaching choices...sadly. But the deals he did with Chris Paul, Nash, Howard etc...he just didn't have the luck that was necessary. If Nash wasn't disabled and Howard wasn't a prima donna and Kobe would have been healthy, who knows if we had another ring or not. But in terms of drafting and trading, everything they have done has made sense. They sucked in free agency but thats due to low leverage and no assets, so its hard to judge because they have a legit excuse.
Early numbers on the starting 5 don't look good as expected : a minus 0.2 net rating in 76 minutes Some others lineups ( very small samples) are killing it http://stats.nba.com/team/#!/1610612747/lineups/advanced/