Now that the Los Angeles Lakers have moved on from Byron Scott, who will they look to to lead this young team going forward?
After months of fans, analysts and former players alike grabbing their torches and pitchforks and calling for his head, the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday night finally ended the tumultuous head coaching tenure of head coach Byron Scott.
Scott’s tenure was comprised of the two worst regular-season records in franchise history and rocky relations with young talent that caused him to quickly lose favor with fans.
While there were rumblings that Scott might hold on to the job for at least one more season, Scott was just too disenfranchised from the current roster and fan base and too unproductive to keep the job in a market that expects championship-caliber excellence year after year.
Now that the Byron Scott era has officially come to a close, the Lakers can get in on one of the better head coaching pools of any offseason to date. Despite the fact that two high-quality coaches in Tom Thibodeau and Scott Brooks are now off the board, there are still plenty of solid options for the Purple and Gold to choose from that fit well with the current roster.
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The one that immediately comes to mind is ESPN analyst and former Golden State Warriors head coach Mark Jackson.
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The last time Jackson got his hands on a young, up-and-coming squad built around a talented backcourt, he took a Warriors team to the playoffs for the first time in six years and the Splash Brothers were born. He would be inheriting a similar situation with the Lakers and the backcourt tandem of D’Angelo Russell and Jordan Clarkson and could guide them to similar success.
Jackson also helped mold the Warriors into the elite defensive unit they are today during his tenure, taking them from the second-worst scoring defense in 2011-12 (his first season) to a top-10 ranking in 2013-14.
Improving the Lakers’ abysmal play on that end would obviously be the first priority for whoever coaches the team next, and Jackson — with his gritty New York ideology — would be the perfect man for the job.
Jackson is also incredibly relatable and an ultimate player’s coach, quick to come to the defense of his guys before the media and whoever else. This is an intangible that this young Lakers squad craves after three years under the no-nonsense, tough love-preaching Scott.
Jackson would be a home run hire, but the Lakers will also take a good look at another candidate from the Golden State coaching tree.
Current Warriors assistant Luke Walton has been linked to every struggling team that might have a coaching vacancy since he led the best regular-season team ever to a 39-4 start and this has been especially true in terms of the Lakers gig.
Whether or not Walton’s success was less due to his own acumen and more so because of the influence of head coach Steve Kerr is unknown, but the fact that the Warriors played so well while Walton was at the helm gives him enough clout to land the job.
Walton is a product of two successful coaching philosophies, having played for the Lakers under the Zen Master Phil Jackson before earning an assistant coaching spot under Kerr. If he could bring the best of those two worlds to this Lakers team, the result could be wonderous and bring Walton a smidget of the immediate success Kerr had.
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With the firing of Byron Scott, the Lakers have officially put the Kobe Bryant era in the rear-view mirror and are looking to build a new foundation of success for the future. Whatever way the Lakers go in their search for a new head coach, it’ll be a step in the right direction to resurrect on of the Association’s most storied franchises.