Ex-Coach Luke Walton Discussion

I'm about to be critical of Luke Walton, even though I really liked him as a player and how he played, and I'm happy he's our coach.

Luke cares more about offense than defense. He is currently in a strong D'Antoni-esque phase. It's not D'Antoni clone, because Luke doesn't want his players to shoot every 10 seconds or some nonsense, but he does want them to pass a certain number of times (300?) in a game, but the team never makes that goal. So he's been ineffectual as a leader so far, at least in that regard. He seems to think that Golden State is a good defensive team because offense is awesome, and everyone knows that if you're getting your touches, you'll play hard defense (except this is false, despite the fact that many people on this site also believe it). He has the Lakers playing a very fast pace, the fourth highest in the NBA. We are playing very average offense and nearly league worst defense. Yet, we have made no noticeable adjustments defensively. The team is structured to score points. We do that, and we lose regularly.

Signing Deng and Mozgov were likely supposed to bolster the defense, but players alone don't do that. We're playing JC, DA, Williams, Young, and we have Huertas and Calderon on the roster. None of them are good defenders up top. In fact, maybe two of them are occasionally (DA, Young) even average defenders. So our guards are getting lit up, and we have no one behind them to make up for those inefficiencies. Yet, we have made no moves to bolster our defense. The team is built around poor defenders, and those who aren't yet settled into poor defenders are learning bad habits.

My dog woke me up at 3:00 this morning to go outside. I checked the score, saw we lost, and laid back down thinking about what the problem was with this team. It occurred to me what it was NOT - and that's people "not getting enough touches to be involved on defense." Think about it - name one player on this team who has any reason to feel he hasn't gotten enough touches and time to give his all on defense. I can think of one person. And I'm not just thinking about this rationally, by looking at numbers; I'm thinking about this a subjectively as I know people can approach their craft - feeling slighted for nothing (like DeMarcus Cousins, who can essentially do anything he wants with the team, but he's still unhappy). The only player who has any reason to feel slighted is Jordan Clarkson. He was a starter. He's now not.

Everyone else is either a starter, plays heave minutes (and wasn't ever going to be a starter), or is injured. So the problem isn't a bunch of disgruntled players. They really seem willing to do the right thing. They just need to be taught how to do it. In short, then, this is all on Luke - for various reasons (personnel decisions, the way he approaches the game, and the way he allows players to keep playing when they don't defend).

 

I definitely agree with that analysis, trodgers. That seems to be our biggest problem. However, Luke is young and I believe he will eventually figure things out. Out team can score, that's not the issue. And the scoring is actually pretty balanced.

 

This is why I'm happy he's our coach. He'll get it. I think it's something to do with his playing time and his time coaching. Defense took care of itself in LA (oh, because they had two of the best defenders, at least when they were motivated), and he wasn't part of the building of Golden State, where the team steadily progressed defensively building up to the Kerr years. He just didn't see someone build a defensive team.

 

Defense is the problem here, but I don't agree with blaming Luke for the problems because I can't think of a single team that was as bad as we were last year, with a bunch of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year key players that turned it around and became a decent defensive team the next year without a few BIG defenders signed.

The youngsters have learned bad habits, and it's going to take a while to break them if those habits. It would be one thing if it was just one or two players we could bench to show them how to play right, but it's damn near everyone, and we don't have better defensive players on the bench waiting for their chance.

IMO, this is going to be a process no matter what. We're talking a few years of slow growth. Luke Walton isn't going to be the golden child that can fix all of this team's problems in less than a half a season. Nobody could, and especially not a rookie coach.

I think most of us had that perspective before the season started, but lost perspective on exactly how bad we were after the great start we had. We need to get back to the reality of the situation and understand, Luke isn't a bad coach, but it's exactly what we expected before the season started... a process.

 

Luke has to be blamed, but there is plenty of blame to go around elsewhere. I took the initiative to criticize Luke because too many are either unwilling to criticize him or would be unnecessarily harsh. I think I'm being totally fair.

I don't expect the Lakers to be a top defensive team overnight, but this isn't overnight. This is years in the making (more on this below). I do want more improvement though. Honestly, if just anyone could turn this team around, then Luke wouldn't be a good coach. He's supposed to be a good coach, so we have to expect that he can do the uncommon. Golden State is the model I'm looking at, actually. In Mark Jackson's second year, the Warriors jumped from 27th to 16th in defense, and they did so with five of their top 8 players in terms of minutes played being 24 or younger. No one who played more than 600 minutes on the season was older than 29.

Just from last year to this year: New Orleans jumped from 27th to 14th in Def Rtg. The 76ers have improved from 26th to 20th. It can be done, and not by inhuman efforts.

This is part of my point. They haven't built a roster that stresses defense. They aren't out making moves now to bring on the right kind of pieces. And they play the hell out of guys like Julius Randle - who is perhaps the worst defender I have ever seen. I think we could put together decent defensive units, even without Tarik and Nance (having them helps A LOT): Russell, Young, Ingram, Deng, and Mozgov.

In fact, that unit has a 111 offensive rating and a 98 defensive rating in their 28 minutes this season, and a +5 overall, having outscored their opposition in 2 of the 3 times they've been on the court. Meanwhile, replacing Randle for Ingram increases the offensive rating only to 113 and decreases the defensive rating to 109. You cannot sacrifice that much defense for that little offense.

Luke Walton isn't walking into a team that as in shambles as some other teams have been. We've been stockpiling lottery picks. We have Russell, Ingram, Randle, Clarkson, Ingram, and Nance - all some of the best players to enter the league in the last three years. We have tons of talent. It's the coach's job to maximize that. For what it's worth, I think that the slow growth idea is right, but there's no growth yet. Name one player who has improved as the season has progressed. Ingram? That's about it. Now, name players who have regressed: Clarkson, Ingram, and Williams, for sure.

I was a 29-win guy at the season's beginning, and I never revised my thoughts on what I expected from this team. I'm seeing a troubling commitment to offense despite the fact that we don't have the firepower to do that, and I'm seeing increasingly bad defense. I don't see any difference between a Byron-coached team and a Luke-coached team ON THE COURT. That's a problem.

Gauntlet thrown, Luke.

 

I wonder.

We surrendered 114 in our first game, and then we averaged (total games played, average points surrendered):
2 / 105
3 / 108
4 / 110
5 / 111
6 / 109
7 / 108
8 / 109
9 / 107
10 / 106
And then it ballooned, as we surrendered an average of 121 over the next six games.

 

But the Lakers are looking worse and worse defensively.

 

I missed the "good" qualifier!

 

I can't remember the specific one, but in an interview Luke said he doesn't want the players to switch everything. They are supposed to read the situation and switch if it makes sense. He said the players have just gotten into the habit of switching everything and there are situations where they shouldnt switch