It’s funny how viewpoints can change from one moment to the next. The latest victim of the fickle fans and media is our very own Lakers coach Luke Walton. It was a historic 39-4 start that made him a hot commodity as a head coach. So when the Lakers bid farewell to then coach Byron Scott, it wasn’t long before Luke Walton took over.
So began the honeymoon period. Everybody celebrated the easy-going likeable player who was considered by the Black Mamba himself to be the next great head coach. He was given the opportunity to coach a young rebuilding team that featured D’Angelo Russell, Brandon Ingram, Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance Jr. and Julius Randle. Luke endured a very challenging first season, but managed to improve the team’s wins by 9 games.
In the following season, the Lakers made a few moves from management on down and began anew, replacing D’Angelo Russell with Lonzo Ball and adding rookie standouts Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart. Luke Walton took this young team and led the team to yet another plus 9 wins and the Lakers finished at 35-47. The second season featured heavier critiques of Luke Walton, mainly his rotations. The fans seemed to call for his head at times, but by the end of the season it was clear that Luke Walton had done a fine job with the young Lakers. He had brought them within a few games of playoff contention in spite of multiple injuries, lineup rotations, mid-season trades and LaVar Ball.
At this point it was clear that Luke Walton was very skilled at working with young players. Julius Randle became a few steps away from a star player. The young Lakers became the talk of the NBA and the rest of the NBA, including superstars began to take notice. Luke Walton had that locker room. Players loved playing for Luke. He had them running and had them playing defense. The young Lakers were poised for a real playoff run in the 2018-2019 campaign. However, behind the scenes Magic and Rob were setting the stage for another one of the Lakers historic instant upgrades. The ones that brought in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, Pau Gasol and others. Magic and Rob, as pleased as they were with the progress of the young guns, were not looking to simply make the playoffs next season. They were looking to do more. So shortly after the Warriors all but walked away with their second championship, Magic and Rob brought in the best basketball player in the world— LeBron James. Shortly after, they signed Rajon Rondo, then Lance Stephenson, then JaVale McGee, then Michael Beasley.
All of a sudden the fickle media and fans looked back at Luke Walton and said, “Is this the right man for the job?” Some even said that this was a set up to get him fired. Talk of Phil Jackson returning and all kinds of obscenely inaccurate rumors started to fly. The bottom line is people started to look at this current Lakers team and ask if Luke Walton could coach this team.
So what changed? One, the Lakers morphed overnight from a possible 7-8 seed easily to a bona-fide championship contender. The goals changed from trying to make the playoffs and continuing to develop the young Lakers, to trying to win it all with the reloaded Lakers led by LeBron James, the young Lakers and a litany of veterans. The makeup of the team now begged questions like, “Can he coach LeBron James? Can he coach Rajon Rondo? Can he coach a championship contender?”
Forgive me for being dismissive, but what evidence do we have to suggest he can’t coach such a roster? Media have once again taken things way out of proportion and creating fires where there is no smoke. Even though fans and media have the ability to blow things out of proportion, they yet still can’t see any value in Luke’s ability to lead a stacked Golden State Warriors team to a 39-4 start. This was a team that featured stars and personalities and was obviously a championship contender. Fine. Let’s leave that one where it is. Can Luke coach LeBron James? Is it because he’s young? Is it because he’s inexperienced? Using that premise alone, one can then begin to exclude a young inexperienced Erik Spoelstra who then should not have coached LeBron James, DeWayne Wade and Chris Bosh, but led them to back-to-back championships. We can then also eliminate inexperience and young head coach Tyronn Lue who also coached LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving to a championship. These teams were a mix of stars, youth and veterans. Is Luke Walton less skilled of a coach than the aforementioned coaches? I don’t think so.
So with Luke Walton being able lead a young, inexperienced Lakers team to a 35-47 record and falling a few spots out of playoff contention, one can only expect an even more successful season when you add the greatest player in the world and some very savvy veterans. LeBron James and the recent additions do not now somehow become a detriment to Luke Walton’s coaching career. Quite the contrary, Luke is now on the fast track to legendary coaching status.
Does Luke Walton now have a challenge meshing personalities and deciding whether or not to go with veterans versus the current young core? No! LeBron has already expressed how much this young core excites him. Magic has explained to the new signees about their role and I’m sure they understand that a starting spot is anything but guaranteed. Rob Pelinka has flatly stated that the only guaranteed starter is LeBron James. Luke in times past has shown no qualms with sitting down veterans if they do not produce. The respect of the locker room has developed through his time as a player, his track record Golden State as an assistant and the job he’s done with these young Lakers in the past couple years. Luke Walton has learned from the best how to manage people and I expect him to do a fine job, especially when this whole team has a unifed desire to prove everybody wrong and win a championship.
What I’m saying is, media needs to stop trying to find fault with Luke before he even coaches his first game with a roster already touted to be a top 5 team regardless of what ESPN says. With this current roster, one can only be excited that we have a coach like Luke Walton taking the lead. A student of Phil Jackson and Gregg Poppovich, a 3 time champion and teammate of Kobe Bryant, Luke Walton is more than qualified to get a shot at leading the new-look Lakers back to NBA dominance.
The Lakers Optimist 