Lakers must fire Byron Scott now

I made a promise to myself that I would never do two things in my writing career: criticise referees, umpires or officials, or ever suggest that a coach be fired.

Well, I’ve already broken half of that promise in the past, so I may as well go all in.

The Los Angles Lakers must fire head coach Byron Scott immediately.

Scott was one of my favourite players as the shooting guard on the famous 1980s Showtime Lakers. He was a good shooter and very athletic, and a great backcourt partner to Magic Johnson.

As a coach, his resume doesn’t read horribly. He took the (then) New Jersey Nets to two NBA Finals, was named NBA Coach of the Year in 2008, and has coached in the All-Star game twice. His overall win-loss record is 437-582, which isn’t great, but in his defence, he’s been in charge of some pretty bad rosters.

However, I fear the modern NBA has passed him by. To the point where he is now a terrible coach.

The hire of Scott has been an absolute disaster for the Lakers, and the error cannot be compounded any longer by continuing to employ him as he runs this once-proud organisation into the ground.

To be clear, my belief that Scott should be fired has little to do with the Lakers’ record since he was named head coach. The team finished 21-61 last season – the worst in franchise history – however Gregg Popovich would struggle to do much better, considering the limited roster, and the injuries the team suffered.

This season, the Lakers have started 0-4, and have been the worst team in the league in that small sample size. Yet again, it’s not even the losses that are the biggest issue, even though wins remain any coach’s currency.

The bigger concern is that Scott is a dinosaur.

‘Advanced metrics’ is not just a trendy NBA catchphrase. Detailed analysis of data is a valuable tool for basketball coaches, and many successful NBA franchises now have entire departments dedicated to analytics.

Yet Scott doesn’t believe in them.

In February, Scott was quoted as saying: “I think we’ve got a few guys who believe in it. I’m not one of them. I listen to them and all that stuff and take it into consideration, but I’m still just old school.”

It was a stunning admission, and showed a lack of understanding of the modern NBA and how beneficial advanced metrics can be.

Yet it’s far from the only comment that highlights just how out of touch Scott is with today’s league.

Last season, he expressed his viewpoint that he doesn’t believe three-pointers win championships, despite a league-wide trend of relying more and more on the three-ball. All recent NBA champions have used the three-pointer as a large part of their armoury and tactics, with eight of the last nine champions leading all playoff teams in three-point attempts and makes.

So it was bit of concern that Scott didn’t buy into the value of the three-pointer.

Bizarrely, the Lakers are actually shooting a lot more threes this season. In fact, they lead the league in three-pointers attempted, firing up 32 per game. If they continue at that their current pace, they’d go close to breaking the all-time record, set last season by the Houston Rockets.

But proving that Scott just can’t get it right, the Lakers actually shouldn’t be taking that many threes, because they’re only hitting 28 per cent of them, for a ranking of 24th in the league in three-point percentage. Yet they continue to jack them up, in particular Kobe Bryant, even though he’s hitting just 20 per cent of them.

Yes, you read that right, 20 per cent.

Despite that horror statistic, Scott refuses to rein him in. Which brings us to another major issue for the team: the coach can’t control Kobe, or get the best out of him in the twilight of his career.

Kobe is stubborn and strong-willed. He also has no conscious when it comes to shooting, and has an impressive offensive arsenal of moves. All of that is exactly what has made Kobe great, while conversely, it’s also been his downfall.

At 37 years of age, and now in his 20th season, Kobe is no longer the superstar he once was. Yet he refuses to alter his game, and Scott’s reluctance or inability to make Kobe adapt is killing the Lakers. While it’s a player’s league, the coach still needs to make decisions for the betterment of the team, and Scott simply isn’t doing that when it comes to Kobe.

Sadly, it’s not just Kobe that Scott is having trouble with.

After the Lakers second game of the season, Scott said he felt the players were looking fatigued. Come again? How the hell can a team be fatigued after just the second game of the season?

Either Scott pushed them way too hard in the pre-season, or the players are unfit. Whichever it is, it’s unacceptable, and it’s also completely on Scott.

As if all that wasn’t enough, there’s also been Scott’s handling of rookie D’Angelo Russell.

When the number two overall draft pick was asked in pre-season about his role with the Lakers, the point guard revealed that he didn’t know, because Scott hadn’t talked to him about it. He also said that Scott hadn’t told him whether he was starting or not.

Good communications skills there, Byron.

There was another comment from about Scott about his desire to ‘ease the workload’ of Russell. I’m not really sure why a 19-year-old would need his workload decreased. Nor do I know why Russell was only given 20 minutes of game time yesterday, and none in the fourth quarter. One would think that the team needs to develop their young floor general with experience.

I’m sure you won’t find the following quote in any confidence-building manual either: “Let’s make this very clear, Russell is not Magic Johnson. Magic came on the scene, and instantly he’s a Hall-of-Famer. D’Angelo has a way to go, there’s no doubt about that.”

No surprise for guessing whose mouth that came out of.

After the first two games of the season, in which Russell had played at shooting guard, Scott publicly stated that he wanted to “get the ball in Russell’s hands more”. Sarcasm alert, but that’s a pretty astute decision, considering Russell is actually a point guard.

To say Scott is mismanaging the start of Russell’s NBA career would be an understatement.

Throw in LaMarcus Aldridge’s dismay at the lack of basketball talk in his Lakers recruitment meeting in the off-season, Scott’s horrible substitution patterns, his baffling overrating of Ryan Kelly, his complete misuse of Roy Hibbert so far, the Lakers porous defence – I could go on – and I simply cannot see how Scott’s position with the team is tenable.

Scott has to go, and he has to go now.