What on earth is happening out in Tinseltown? The Lakers are in trouble out in the West and there are no signs of that getting better anytime soon.
Their season has been, to say the least, a mess. The premature firing and hiring of Mike Brown and then Mike D’Antoni goes to show that the front office may not be thinking about the moves it is making.
In my opinion, neither move should have happened. They need to stop worrying about signing a ‘big’ name coach and look for the right man for the job.
While injuries, chemistry issues, a horrible bench and an identity crisis sure have played a part in the Lakers underachieving this season, I have no doubt a large part of this problem is due to their coach, Mike D’Antoni.
When you can’t win with the personnel that the Lakers have on board, you know you’re not the right coach for the job. So how can the Lakers find their Mr. Right this season?
The Lakers defence is horrible right now, and none of their new additions are helping solve that.
Dwight Howard, three-time defensive player of the year has been solid coming back from injury, and that will only improve once he gets back to 100%.
However, he has been the only defensive pillar, and the team’s defence as a whole suffers from Mike D’Antoni’s defensive system, if you could honour him by referring to it as that.
D’Antoni is a strictly offensive coach, with limited defensive capabilities, which is unfortunately the Laker’s biggest basketball issue. Their spacing is all wrong, they’re slow to rotate, and the genius of San Antonio and Gregg Popovich exposed the hell out of them.
It was nothing short of a minor miracle (Earl Clark) that the Lakers managed to stay in the game. It is clear as talented as this team is, D’Antoni is not the man needed to implement the defensive systems the Lakers need.
It is clear on paper that the Lakers have one of the best offensive starting line-ups in the league. Between them, they have almost 70 years of experience on the NBA court. Almost any one of them could be the offensive alpha dog on another team.
The offence basically coaches itself, hence a Lakers coach should be more of a mentor, guiding the superstars in how to correctly use everyone’s offensive prowess together most effectively, and less of a system-based offensive man.
Mike D’Antoni is exactly the latter. And what’s more, Mike’s ‘offensive genius’ is a run-and-gun, ‘7 seconds or less’ offence that is the exact kind of up-tempo rubbish the septuagenarian Lakers shouldn’t be running.
They’re much better when they slow the ball down and run their half-court sets than try and outgun their athletically superior peers.
This is why D’Antoni is unecessary. While a fourth coaching change in one season wouldn’t look good, the Lakers need to pull the trigger now if they want to win one more with Nash and Kobe around.
I touched on it a bit last paragraph, but a Lakers coach also needs to be able to handle several superstars and their different personalities. Do I dare mention Phil Jackson?
There are a number of different coaches doing that in the league right now, such as Mike Woodson, Doc Rivers and Erik Spoelstra.
All of these men would make great coaches, but it would be hard to pry them from their respective cities.
Perhaps an ideal move would be to travel the road less taken and hire an assistant who has worked under one of the aforementioned coaches during their time managing several stars.
If they choose not to elect a rookie head coach, likely due to the magnitude of the task, then there are plenty of former head coaches they could take a look at such as Jerry Sloan, Mike Dunleavy, Jeff Van Gundy etc that could work a miracle in La La Land.
It should be clear to all (especially the Lakers) that D’Antoni is not the right guy for the job; he never was.
And as much as the Lakers don’t want to make a fourth head coaching personnel change this season, they must if they want to win and win big immediately.
With players like Steve Nash, that is what this team is built to do. Mitch Kupchack is a pretty damn good GM, but he needs to wake up.
The Lakers won’t save him this time.
astro
Guest
Lakers are 4th in PPG, so their offense can't be that bad!
astro
Guest
You can't blame D'Antoni for their current struggles. The Lakers roster is one which looks amazing in terms of the lineup, but in reality doesn't work. Pau and Dwight are a poor fit, they lack outside shooting, their bench is a disaster and forces the starters into playing long minutes and Dwight clearly has yet to get back to best. Things would likely be much better for the Lakers if the team had time to gel, and more time together on the court, but injuries have made that impossible. Hence, what you have is a team with absolutely no chemistry, and that shows up on defense more than anything else, irrespective of how good or bad a defensive coach D'Antoni is. We can speculate that things would have been better with Phil Jackson (although I don't see how he could have prevented the injuries which have occurred), but for whatever reason, it was clear that Buss didn't want him coaching the team, or that he wouldn't commit to an on-going role as coach. As for Van Gundy...I doubt Dwight would ever agree to play for either Stan or Jeff again, and Dunleavy's last stint with the Clippers was horrendous. Sloan is a great coach, but is known as quite tough, so may not have worked with personalities like Kobe and Dwight (see DWill), and any rookie coach would be eaten alive by Kobe! The truth is, D'Antoni will stay through to the end of the year, and likely next year as well, as if the Lakers want Dwight to re-sign, a fourth coaching change wouldn't exactly help. A defensive assistant might help, but not until the Lakers get healthy and stay healthy and figure out how to get Gasol playing like the All-Star he is.
Ronnie Liddle
Roar Rookie
a bit off topic but do you think it adds pressure when the clippers are doing so well?
Myles Stedman
Roar Guru
Definitely fair enough points Reece. Nate McMillan would be a superb defensive coordinator, but then there is still the problem with the Lakers' offence. No matter how effective Gasol and Howard are in the post, D'Antoni wants to run this thing his way, and that's not going to sit well with anyone else in the Lakers organization. He needs to hand the offensive keys over to the players themselves hence rendering himself useless. If I were a Lakers fan, I'd be adamant of D'Antoni getting replaced, whether it's during the season or in the off-season.
Reece Jordan
Roar Pro
I wholeheartedly agree with you on the point that D'Antoni was never the right man for the job. But firing him now would essentially be throwing in the towel for the season, and serve a huge blow to the galvanising the Lakers' unit . If we were playing 'replace the coach' though, you'd be hard pressed to find the right fit. Phil Jackson nor Jerry Sloan are touching this mess, and I don't think Dunleavy or Van Gundy are good enough. The issues for the Lakers are beyond the coach, their execution has been horrible. No one seemed to really realise that Gasol and Howard are both only effective in the post, and the injuries haven't helped. Nash looks absolutely lost without his standard usage rate, mainly to the detriment of his scoring. I read a great piece on SB's Lakers Nation blog which was a renewed call for D'Antoni to appoint Nate McMillan (ex Blazers coach, 2012 Team USA assistant with MDA) as defensive co-ordinator. I think that move would be brilliant. This season's mess falls on the shoulders of Jim Buss and Jim Buss only. No one should critique Mitch Kupchak for acquiring Steve Nash or Dwight Howard. God forbid, how much worse off would we be with Kobe Bryant, Ramon Sessions and Pau Gasol running the floor while Andrew Bynum watches on? There's a lot to fix, maybe an insurmountable amount, but I don't believe it's going to come by axing another head coach.