Byron Scott came in with what I would describe as the "prototypical Lakers attitude." What's the plan? "The plan is to win." He was supposed to be a return to the Lakers family, a former player with a gameplan built around tough defense (despite not having coached a top-ten defensive unit in over five years), and a return to the way of doing things when the Lakers were dominant.
Unfortunately, a lot has changed since the Lakers were good four years ago. Phil Jackson's in New York. Pau Gasol's in Chicago. The game has evolved to incorporate more threes and more spacing, two things Scott either doesn't prioritize or disdains, depending on your perspective, and Kobe Bryant has spent more time on the shelf than on the court.
Because of all those reasons, combined with Scott's inability to adjust to them, the Lakers are a hot mess. They are the pop star seven years after their second album who is doing desperate appearances to keep themselves relevant and keeps popping up on TMZ with the worst stories. They are the Indian food leftovers you put at the back behind the yogurt and completely forgot about for way too long. They are a hazmat zone.
Scott keeps blaming the players for this. From the LA Times:
"I got a sense of a whole lot of them I wouldn't want to be in a fox hole with," Scott said after Monday's practice. "I think they'd end up shooting me in the back. So I've got a pretty good sense of the guys that I think are going to be around, that we will build around, build together in this process and go through it."
via Byron Scott keeps teaching, though some Lakers pupils are unwilling - LA Times.
Look, this roster is terrible. Julius Randle and Kobe Bryant went out for the year, those were their two best players. There's a pretty good chance that more than half of them won't be in the league in three years. Mitch Kupchak knew that when he put the team together. This was supposed to be a year to get another good pick and save money for next offseason or the year after. Playoffs were a distant hope, but that relied on health, which they didn't get (for the fourth year in a row, but that's a different question).
So yes, the boat wasn't built to withstand the iceberg. But Scott comes across as the captain of the Titanic telling everyone it's the boat's problem it hit the berg in the first place. Lots of coaches are short on talent. What you do with that is on you. And the Lakers are a mess in part because of Scott's outdated approach and lack of a cohesive gameplan. In short, he's done the opposite of "make the most with the least." He's made the least with the least.
It is pretty impressive, though. Not many guys can throw their players under the bus while they're driving it.
Man, where do the Lakers go from here, without a free agent riding in to save the day?
HT: SBNation
