Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

You can come back in May. We'll miss your crazy a** around here till then.

Don't forget your Luke poster to keep you warm during the winter...



Seriously tho bro, I hate to sound like a broken record, but this s*** needs to marinate.

'96 brought us a dynamic duo which wasn't realized till '00. Phil had Tex/Triangle, yet played Kob iso out of timeouts. I'm not calling Luke anything close to THE ZenMaster, but this s*** needs time when there was so much flux with this organization that even the FO got touched.

 

theres poor d cause refs call lots of fouls reducing a teams aggressiveness on d but this team is just poorly coached ....plain n simple. I'll admit I liked the luke hiring initially but lets be honest here, whether this team improves or not, I think its pretty clear by now Luke is NOT a championship lvl coach at the end of the day. We MIGHT still make the playoffs but I see us being somewhat of an easy out.

 

His rotations are mind boggling. Lance only playing 15 minutes tonight is downright criminal. On nights where Ball and Rondo are off, Lance needs to be running point.

 

It's called an and1 Cook and I know you've seen em before. How you are implying that fastbreaks "correlate" to wide open attempts as grounds to continue an argument, "causes" me concern.

Unfortunately the stats are only reflective of our 1st 3 games at the moment, but at that time we led the league in transition frequency and we're still 6th best in And1 frequency, 7th best in shooting fouls drawn and 9th best in free throw frequency. So at least we're getting some calls on the break...thankfully we're not in the middle to lower tier of teams there.

If you assumed a quarter of our shots are transition attempts and therefore we effectively minimized the amount of shots we take with defenders around, then your correlation implied causation would be just as flagrant as mine....or would it? (Btw unlike the aforementioned stats, all the upcoming stats are up to date)

LA has had 74 shot attempts with a defender classified as being in "very tight" proximity (0-2 feet) of our offensive player. Sac is the league leader with 88 such attempts. Minny has 83 attempts. So why is that Minny leads the league in foul shot attempts with 190, Sac is fourth with 173 and we are middle of the tier with 152 total FT attempts?

Why is it that Utah is dead last in "very tight" defended field goal attempts with 42 such shots, yet they're ranked 2nd in going to the charity stripe with 177 attempts....oh and by the way, they played 1 less game than we have at the moment, yet already have 25 more FT attempts than we do.

When it comes to LA taking field goal attempts with a defender in "tight" proximity (2-4 feet), we have 230 total attempts, which is 5 less than league leading Sac. Sac has no stars to their name, so they can't get "star calls", meanwhile, we have LABron f***ing James, yet they shot 20+ more times from the line compared to us. WTF is going on?

I'm not claiming to "see" ref partiality, the stats clearly show that something isn't quite adding up. If you are shooting a high frequency of your shot attempts against defenders in "very tight" to "tight" proximity yet are not getting fouls called while other teams are, then thats grounds for complaining about it...especially if you have teams that are shooting less frequently against that type of defense and are getting just as many, if not significantly more attempts at the free throw line than we are.

The Bucks have taken 183 shot attempts that are classified as "wide open" (6+ feet with no defensive presence) and even though that's 33 more "wide open" attempts than we have had, they shot a total of 4 less times at the line than we have. Shouldn't there be a larger divide there?

We are 25th in fouls called per offensive play, yet our style of play should lead to more attempts. (Behind us, Pels, Nugs, cLips round out the top 4 in field goal attempts within 5 ft from the rim and they're all within the top 8 in free throw attempts per offensive possession.

And its not like Luke isn't doing anything about it....he's gotten techs called and has payed $15K complaining about the clear discrepancy in fouls that aren't called in our favor.

Hey, but lets just do as the refs do and turn our heads to it and keep clamoring about "Luke no coach good" and chalk up the ref talk as an uncorrelated excuse. "Good call" on that fam...

 

Luke was terrible from November thru December last year. Then he finished strong. Need to give the team some time and need to likely give Luke the season to see what he has.

 

If Lebron tires of Luke, he’ll tune him out, run his own plays, and then he’ll be gone.

He’ll probably decide whether or not to keep him in less than 30 days. Luke is on the clock.

 

Luke for Lue

 

Like he did with Spoelstra in Miami? Depends if Magic who has at least as much juice in this organization as Riley had at that time in Miami, agrees with him. The Lakers will make that call. Not saying it can't happen that Luke doesn't survive but LeBron himself is not going to decide that next 30 days.

 

Spo is Riley protege, Luke hasn't done anything to warrant more time

 

Doesn't change my answer. It will take Magic signing off.

 

IF James says jump, magic will say how high....and I dont know what Luke has done throughout his tenure here that would suggest he's a championship lvl coach. Granted thats not the goal as of now but this guy isn't even Dell Harris lvl of a coach to be honest.

 

The players like him, but at some point, that won’t be enough. He’s going to have to manage the rotations, improve the offense AND defense, and of course he got to WIN.

I’m not sure he’s up to the task. Managing a team of experienced seasoned vets is far different than grooming young players. He hasn’t done anything since he’s been in LA to make anyone say that “As a coach” he’s a genius.

People skills will only take you so far. Kind of like Mike Brown’s DVD’s on defense. It must accompany wins, or it means nothing.

 

And I appreciate you Cook...I think we're all frustrated with Laker Ls and no one probably more than yourself since all Dame's thread is serving up are baked crickets these days.

Luke's a grown a** man and doesn't need babying, but like any new project, you give it time before you go nuclear. However, as much as Luke needs to stabilize the rotation and work on some half-court offensive sets/more efficient go-to plays, alot of this s*** is out of his control...suspensions, FO overhauling the roster, 1 year players looking to eat for that next check...oh and battling 3 other dudes on the floor too.

Lakers give up 18% in opposing point totals....at the free throw line, ranking them 5th to last. Try playing good defense, only to have the refs bail the other team out and send them to the line for nearly 18% of their point total per game.

I have to disagree with the notion that we're playing no defense and that we're running around with our heads cut off...our avg speed on defense is in the lower tier with the likes of the cbags, who are one of the defensive leaders in the NBA.

Yeah I know, its a poor stat cause that could just tell us that they're going at half-speed and just doggin it on defense...but they're actually not.

Top 5 in steals per, top 10 in blocks per, top 10 in contesting shots....they're middle of the pack in defending 2nd chance and fastbreak points...but we're getting killed in giving up points in the paint, ranking 3rd worst overall.

So you gotta ask yourself why is it that we defend the paint pretty well (even without a legit 30+ min big), particularly in the 4th quarter by allowing 42.9% on contested FG shots, but still allow about 57 points in the paint per game?

Maybe its the refs neutering our defensive intensity some by swallowing the whistle when we're the aggressor on offense, but then getting whistle happy when we try to play the aggressor on defense.

All that being said, everybody needs to get better...Im not trying to defend Luke from his deficiencies, nor our players from theirs...but you can't simply shake off the refs as an excuse. They play a huge role in how the game transpires and what we can and cannot do in a close game (which a majority of our games have turned out to be).

For example, I know you like Josh Hart...now imagine him having nearly all 6 fouls to dole out as a defender in the 4th quarter.

 

Sound like a Luke apologist. I don’t think there are any excuses in professional sports.

If you’re not getting calls, go harder to the hole and make them call it. In the pros, if you don’t get the job done, you get replaced. Harsh but true.

 

I wasn't aware coaches could just kick off their loafers and lace up a pair of kicks. But you're right..the best way is to get in the game and turn this into a 6 on 8 contest.

I guess while he's in there, he should tell Bron to go harder to the cup as well, no?

You probably didn't think of it, being a Bron apologist, aye?



Btw, you probably know its true, but I hope I wasn't being too harsh.

 

I tried to follow your post in a Luke Walton discussion topic, but frankly you are all over the place. I chose to only address one portion of ongoing discussion that seemed relevant.

You seem to be harping on unfair referee calls. That won’t get you far unfortunately, but it will help Luke rack up $15k fines if we choose to complain about it. Like others have mentioned, we need to rise above any bad referee talk and convert our free throws when we get them.

I doubt Luke lasts the year unless management truly thinks this is not a year to be making any legitimate noise. But then again, Magic has been preaching patience with Luke on this roster. His schemes have just been wholly unimpressive.

 

If they let Luke go, have to wait til the end of the year. And if you go that route, get Jay Wright here. He is the next great one.