The biggest Lakers news Wednesday wasn't about the embattled guy who quit, but the one who must now find his replacement.
Mike D'Antoni has resigned as coach, which should make everyone happy, at least until they realize one of the most celebrated sideline seats in basketball is now in the hands of the other scorned Laker.
Cover your eyes. Jim Buss is up.
The Lakers basketball boss by virtue of his late father's will will be taking his fourth swing at hiring a head coach. Judging from past results, the Lakers should board up their El Segundo offices in advance of a powerful breeze.
Three hires, three wild swings, three magnificent strikes.
Rudy Tomjanovich lasted 43 games. Mike Brown lasted 71 games. And D'Antoni, who was a father-son hire, lasted 154 games.
Three strikes and you should be out, but when the legendary Jerry Buss died 14 months ago, his son Jim became even more empowered to make the organization's most important basketball decisions, and there are three big ones awaiting.
Who will be next month's top-six draft pick? Who will be an incoming free agent in the potentially lucrative class of 2015? And who is going to coach them all up?
That last decision will be a vital piece of the life preserver Jim Buss is attempting to construct to ensure his survival. Recently Buss told The Times' Mike Bresnahan that he informed his family he would resign "in three or four years, if we're not back on top."
The next coach will be the navigator of that journey, the only person who can truly steer the future of the Lakers through this winding, treacherous transition.
The next coach will be the one charged with holding the team together amid the surely turbulent final days of Kobe Bryant. He will be the one who must recruit and relate to the top free agents that could be available to the Lakers in 2015.
The next head coach will need to be as sharp as a doctor and as smooth as a river but, no, no, unless the NBA botches the Donald Sterling sale, Doc Rivers is not walking down that hall.
There has been talk that the next coach could be a place-holder for a couple of years, a nice guy like George Karl who could smile through the imminent losing before handing the reins to a established superstar coach who could return them to the top.
That would be a mistake. Teams in turmoil don't need somebody to keep the coaching seat warm, they need somebody who can build it and shape it and make it shine. The Lakers don't need somebody for two years, they need somebody who could conceivably grow into a champion over the next five to seven years.
They don't need a national brand like Duke's Mike Krzyzewski or Kentucky's John Calipari or Michigan State's Tom Izzo. Those guys wouldn't easily stomach the certain nuttiness that awaits a team that has to rebuild not once (this summer) but twice (the summer after Bryant leaves).
They need a strong and steady sort who can quietly become a great head coach while the Lakers loudly reclaim their own greatness. As much as it pains Lakers fans to hear this, the Lakers probably need to imitate the rebuilding Boston Celtics and hire a brainy Brad Stevens-type guy.
Stevens came from Butler University, and the Lakers will probably not hire a college coach, but they can find someone like him on NBA benches, much as the Atlanta Hawks found Mike Budenholzer sitting next to Gregg Popovich in San Antonio, or the Chicago Bulls found Tom Thibodeau sitting next to Rivers in Boston.
If Buss really wants to truly build for the future, he should bring home former Crenshaw High star Kevin Ollie, a 13-year NBA veteran guard who coached Connecticut to this year's national championship.
Whoever Buss hires, the new guy can't contain any shades of D'Antoni, who was never a fit for the town or the team. Last season D'Antoni limped to his first practice after knee surgery, and on Wednesday he essentially limped away despite having a guaranteed contract for one more $4-million season. He apparently left because the Lakers wouldn't agree to pick up the team option on the final year of his contract. That refusal would have made him a lame duck this year, a prospect he didn't relish considering his best player, Bryant, clearly didn't like playing for him.
Although the Lakers apparently paid him some money to leave, there is also the thought that D'Antoni was so weary of the potential Kobe drama and so tired of coaching in a hostile and unsettled environment that he would have left anyway.
Though D'Antoni's system never worked here, he worked hard and behaved professionally and certainly didn't deserve this most unfortunate tweet from Magic Johnson: "Happy days are here again! Mike D'Antoni resigns as the Lakers coach. I couldn't be happier!"
Lakers fans need to save those exclamation points for the next coach. If only there weren't such a question mark attached to the guy hiring him.
bill.plaschke@latimes.com
Twitter: @billplaschke
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Jim Buss can't afford to whiff on Lakers' next coaching hire
Dengan url
http://usiamudahan.blogspot.com/2014/05/jim-buss-cant-afford-to-whiff-on-lakers.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Jim Buss can't afford to whiff on Lakers' next coaching hire
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Jim Buss can't afford to whiff on Lakers' next coaching hire
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar