Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

Where you the leader you are today at 20? How about 30?

People rarely are born with leadership abilities. Combine that with basketball abilities and we are talking unicorn level scarcity here. I truly believe that people around these young guys shape them.

Some are born alpha males, like Kobe or Jordan, which many confuse to be leadership. To me, Pippen was the main leader of those Bulls teams. For us it was Fox. And Fisher. Some Kobe too. Some Shaq. A lot of Lamar behind the scenes.

As a recruiter, you take the most talented, technically, candidate, and try to see if he/she can be molded into a leader. Into one to do the job, but also hold people accountable. Sometimes get in their face. You don't expect to recruit a leader unless its a specifically leadership position, like CEO or what have you.

PG doesn't have to be THE leader. Would be nice if he was one.

Let's give them time to grow.

 

Lots of leadership styles are available to choose from. It could be lead by example, working hard, vocal leadership, take charge from the front, but I don't see any of these things with DAR

I agree it can take time, but even at a young age I had leadership qualities and led at every level I was at. I think the bottom line is we need somebody who is more of a leader than he is and who can command his respect as well if we hope to get the most out of him.

 

Completely agree.

 

When one guy isn't developing you can blame the player.

When no one is developing you gotta start looking at the entire system.

I'm still a Luke guy and he inherited a mess that it will take time to clean up. But the personalities of these guys are pretty clear at this point. Luke and staff have commented on the different approaches needed for each player several times. This accomplished nothing. Even if you are sick of these kids and ready to get rid of them this is still a bad move as it could lower their value.

We're a young team that has developed a lot of bad habits. It takes time to erase that. We need to just commit to that until the end of the season and then start working on the changes to the roster that are surely coming.

 

It's not just DAR though. No one including the vets are showing any leadership qualities. That makes me think there's a bit more to it than just guys being soft.

 

It's inexplicable. And inexcusable.

 

In sports and in life, you succeed by making yourself irreplaceable.

the opposite is true, and these guys are nearly all proving they are quite replaceable.

It's disappointing to see, but we finally have some men of action at the top with a plan, and it won't be tolerated for long. They have committed to getting Luke the best talent out there so he's not trying to coax children to get in the mood to play.

 

Yeah. If there are multiple trades bringing in new guys I'm fine with that.

 

This is why I was against trading Lou. We're asking these kids to work hard for a losing cause. The prize (late 1st rounder) was not worth the lasting damage that will inevitably carry over to next season.

So much for building a winning culture.

 

This is an opportunity to see who will step up in the absence of Lou, and with Nick getting limited minutes.

So far, we haven't seen any consistent excellence from any single player.

 

I disagree about trading Lou. He was a crutch that these kids can lean on, especially when we got down early or needed to catch up on the 4th. Trade him and see who can step up. No more safety net.

I will agree on winning culture but I'd rather win with the kids and not Lou's heroics.

 

Yeah. I agreed with you on that.

 

it is when its this far into the season and we're seeing a progressive down slide in effort and game play. Everything Luke has said thus far feels like lip service, whatever he says hardly any form of improvement results from it.