Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

yeah, kuzma at backup center was his idea...because there really weren't other options. it's like if i give you a fork and knife to eat ice cream, and you choose the fork, and i'm like: d****** eating ice cream with a fork!

 

My memory is a bit different fam. We had Zu and Moe to open up the season and a few weeks into the season the Chan man also came on board.

Listen I was a huge Luke apologist last year, then a member here, @bfc1125roy started pointing out how Luke was running a very basic offense. It was more than just the Puke rhetoric, so I listened and it made sense. Cranjis would also sprinkle stats that didn’t paint Luke in a favorable light.

https://www.bball-index.com/luke-walton-lame-duck/

I recalled Luke even admitting that he was running very basic sets due to the injuries we endured last season...so if you pair that with what others have criticized Luke for, it all started to make sense that Luke wasn’t going to be the guy moving forward.

Luke did have obstacles that were outside his control and I do feel that he didn’t get a fair shake in that regard....but the leaks (my guess was his assistants) was enough to just walk away from the Luke experience.

We wanted to play fast," Walton said. "... [And] the vision was offensively be a team that ran a lot of pistols and dribble drags and delays so we can get the ball moving side to side, built around the idea that we have these guys that are used to having the ball in their hands.

"So we either take turns iso-ing every time or we get to where we move the ball and they naturally get the ball moving and going through them occasionally in the flow of the offense. That was the original plan."
Walton is running a diet version of his playbook and relying on some guys who, when the roster is full, fill the end of his bench.

"With who we have due to our injuries, it's very specific and it's very, 'Hey, with this group we are running these three plays,'" Walton said Saturday before outlasting Phoenix on Sunday. "They are basic NBA sets, but we need that structure. Rondo [just returned and] hasn't been out there with one of the groups, and these guys haven't played together all season.

"When LeBron comes back, we are not just going to run 'floppy side' with LeBron. So it will start to change again."

 

zu was unplayable early in that year. moe was a rookie and was also not good. those are knives.

as for the rest, i'll leave it to the amateur tacticians. luke was in charge of a team that overperformed defensively, and maybe overperformed overall, tbh. people pine for our castoffs due to their big stats while they continue to lose with frequency and intensity. should all coaches be fired?

again, i was fine with moving on from luke; i'm not sure how he could have recovered here, anyway. i just don't think his stint here meant he was a bad coach. i don't think sac is a good measuring stick either with it being a perennial s***show in the front office. he made his bed there, though.

 

i mean, is the kings' roster really underperforming? luke made a mistake taking that job. should have ty lue-d it as an assistant and let people forget about his time with the lakers, then taken a higher profile job with a better organization (which would be, like, almost any of them).

 

You can’t just keep firing coaches when fox and Hield are your best players.

 

The kings roster is better than the grizzlies though - and that's where they expected themselves to be - the 8th seed.

I think it's Luke that is the problem...not the players.

 

I recently let go of the domain fireluke.com since it no longer applied to me as a Laker fan, but I bet I could’ve sold it for some good money

 

Damn Luke

 

Well being a queens coach must affect your mental health.

 

That's a really solid get for his bench. And he chose Luke over Doc

He probably knows there's a better chance of inheriting the team in Sacramento over Philly, too. I'm sure that played a role.

 

gentry seems like a guy who cares more about the working relationship than the firepower on the roster. he can help luke, i think. luke's always needed veteran assistants. i think one of his biggest issues here was stacking the bench with equally or even less experienced guys. like that mermuys character or whatever.

 

I think he had that problem with us. His assistants were not that good. He strikes me kind of like Jimmy Buss does, names his drinking buddies to be his help.

 

right, and we let him. we shouldn't have. we probably overcorrected by forcing kidd on vogel, but we should have done something like that with walton, imo.