So after La La land let go of their coach Mike Brown after only 5 games, most people believed that the only option to help the Lakers would be to bring Phil Jackson back. Especially because of all the hype the team had coming into the year. They were seriously underplaying. Mike Brown wasn’t getting it done, even with new super team, and the Lakers had no patience with him (or maybe was it Kobe’s death stare to pushed him out). Now instead of going with the legend coach Phil Jackson, Jim Buss decided to hire Mike D’Antoni and his 7-second offense.
What is so crazy is that Phil Jackson was expected to make a deal today to come back to the team, and everyone thought this was Phil Jackson’s job if he wanted it, but the franchise chose otherwise. Apparently, Phil wanted some stake into the franchise and better travel arrangements for him to come back. Well Buss, who already has a rocky relationship with Jackson, decided not to give him what he wants and chose D’Antoni.
Another reason Buss chose D’Antoni is because he didn’t believe the triangle offense would work with this team after seeing similarities in the Princeton offense that was dismal. D’Antoni has great chemistry with Steve Nash and his system will push the tempo to score more points, but is it necessarily the best move for the team now. It is good for Nash and Howard, but what about Kobe?
D’Antoni singed a 4 year deal for the Lakers, which sounds more like a rebuilding deal than a win now deal. I thought the Lakers wanted to win now? Kobe is on his last leg and I know he wants to win now. This team is not as fast as D’Antoni’s teams were in Phoenix when he had success. The offense D’Antoni runs is not suited for Kobe because it is a lot of running. Kobe is a half court player, as well as Gasol, so there are some holes in the offense, especially since there are not many shooters on the team. The Lakers got rid of one specialist coach (Mike Brown on defense) to another specialist coach (Mike D’Antoni on offense) and I really don’t see this working right now.
They had Phil Jackson right there and they chose otherwise. In all honestly, the only way they could have solidified why they got rid of Mike Brown so early would have been hiring Phil Jackson, but they didn’t. The reasons why truly, we may never know. But one things for sure, his track record is better than any other option the Lakers had, so if wanted to coach the team, they should have given him what he wanted to bring him back.
Not to say D’Antoni is a bad coach, but I don’t know if he fits what the Lakers need. The Clippers are still the better team in LA at the moment. Check out this article written by Bill Plaschke from the LA times talking about how the 7-second offense won’t work:
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