At what I hope is the end of a string of terrible coaching hires recently for the Lakers is Byron Scott. His place at the end of the bench is explainable by nostalgia at best, as his coaching history and philosophy simply do not fit in today’s NBA. Yes, he coached the Nets to two straight Finals appearances, but to act like those teams were lead by anyone other than Jason Kidd would be way off base. That however seems to be exactly the type of thinking that goes on in the minds of the men who control basketball operations for the team with the second most NBA championships.
The day the Los Angeles Lakers hired Mike D’Antoni, apparently was the point when Mike Kupckak and Jim Buss decided they didn’t have any desire to put a winning team on the floor. Mike Brown will never be remembered fondly for his 71 games (66 for the lockout shortened season, and 5 the season after) as a Lakers coach, but at least his slower paced, defense oriented style of coaching fit the older roster of players he luckily inherited. After two straight championships however, this style of unexciting play and an early playoff exit led to Brown’s firing only five games into his second season.

D’Antoni was, to me, possibly the worst hire possible for that Lakers team. I thought the exact same thing about the hire the moment I heard it happened, so that statement isn’t even based on how the next two years went. D’Antoni helped pioneer the relatively new system of fervently passing and shooting threes that so many teams now run, and that was possible after the rule changes that occurred from 2000-2005 that curtailed hand checking and instituted the defensive three second foul. To anyone with an inkling of basketball insight the clash between his style and a team made up of past their prime all-stars who can’t sprint possession after possession, game after game. His first year led to serious back injuries for Nash, a ruptured achilles for Kobe Bryant, a disheartened Pau Gasol, and a bitter Dwight Howard. (To be fair, Nash and Kobe getting injured at their age was more probable than not, and Howard had more of a problem with Kobe than D’Antoni.)

After one more terrible D’Antoni season that finished with 27 wins, Kupchak and Buss decided to fix the problem with Byron Scott. Here is where mistake after mistake compounded to finish in disaster. The one time player for the great showtime Lakers held a record of 416-521 before last seasons disastrous 21-61 year, and his stint with post-Lebron Cleveland showed he wasn’t the coach to hire to lead a team through rebuild. Oh, and that Cavs team he led for the final two of his three years had TWO players that have now signed giant contracts in Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson.

All of this so far speaks to Scott’s history of poor coaching, but the most recent issue is his lack of an ability to face the reality that the 2015-2016 Lakers team has no possibility of making the playoffs, or even getting close to postseason play. In three of the seven games this season, Scott has failed to play the future of the franchise, D’Angelo Russell, at all in the fourth quarter. In the recent blowout to the Miami Heat, coach Scott noted he didn’t even think to put Russell back on the floor with the game out of hand. These late game moments are exactly the type of situations Russell has to be playing in for him to develop into the player the Lakers desperately need him to be.

For direct comparison with two of the best young point guards in the league currently, Irving played 30.5 minutes per game in his rookie year, and Damian Lillard played 38.6 in his, while Russell is playing a mere 24.6 minutes per game this year so far. Also, just for Lakers historical context, Magic Johnson averaged 36.3 mpg in his rookie year. Not saying Russell is going to be an all time great like Magic, but he certainly isn’t going to develop quickly without being on the court.

Considering everything together, Scott clearly is not the key to turning the team around, and LA should cut bait before wasting anymore time on this path.