Shakeup in La-La Land!

On 11/9 the Los Angeles Lakers shocked the NBA world by firing Coach Mike Brown after only five games (he was 1-4).  Then in an equally stunning move they hired Mike D’Antoni to replace him right before midnight Pacific on 11/11 after flirting with Phil Jackson for two solid days.  In between all of this Devin Ebanks got a DUI, Steve Nash’s diagnosis for a non-displaced fracture of his lower left leg went from one week to four and Steve Blake (Nash’s replacement) aggravated a lower abdominal strain that he was trying to play through and will likely miss time too.  Phew, got all that?

At first Brown’s firing seemed a bit rash to me given that he only got 71 total games (42-29) in charge of the team over two seasons.  Then I read that Owner Jerry Buss learned a lesson with Paul Westhead; “When you’re ready to fire someone, don’t wait.”  So rather than give Brown the upcoming six game home stand to right the ship VP Jim Buss and GM Mitch Kupchak decided to drop the guillotine just prior to shoot around Friday morning.

While the timing gave me a little pause, truth be told I didn’t shed a tear for Mike Brown (never liked his hiring in the first place) on his way out of town, nor did many Laker fans in So Cal per my man on the street in LA.  Brown’s offense was as unimaginative for the Lakers as it was for the Cavaliers in Cleveland.  Instead of teammates standing around and watching LeBron James they now watched Kobe Bryant instead.  Brown also somehow managed to reduce Pau Gasol to a non-factor, which should be impossible given the Spaniard’s versatility.  This season was equally as bad if not worse with his ill-fated “Princeton Offense” ironically benefiting no one besides Gasol. 

Mike’s defense, his supposed calling card, was no better either.  In 2010-11, the season before he was hired, the Lakers allowed the sixth fewest points per possession in the NBA (defensive efficiency the stat geeks call this).  The Lakers ranked 13^th in the league last year and were 23^rd this season prior to Brown’s firing.  Over the last two seasons LA has also been the worst team in the league at forcing turnovers too.  Their 12.1 opponent turnover percentage during that span ranks dead last.  In ‘10-11 the Lakers held opponents to the fifth lowest field goal percentage within five feet of the basket and in each of the last two seasons that percentage has increased as well. 

However my biggest pet peeve with Brown were his inconsistent, and often illogical, substitution patterns and the way he doled out minutes.  I mean Kobe averaged 38.5 minutes a game last year and had nothing left for the playoffs.  He also chose to play Troy Murphy over Jordan Hill last season and Antawn “My Most Hated Laker” Jamison over Jodie Meeks this one.  I’m not sure the LA brain trust really fixed this problem but I’ll touch on that later.

After Brown’s ouster the speculation immediately focused on one Mr. Phil Jackson.  You know, the guy with eleven rings as a coach and who also happens to date the owner’s daughter.  Phil met with both Buss’ and Kupchak on Saturday with the understanding that he would have until Monday to give them his answer.  In that meeting Phil apparently asked for five things:

1. To be paid something in the neighborhood of 2-years/$20 million.

2. To have the ability to skip certain road games/trips.

3. To have final say on all personnel decisions.

4. To have the ability to name an Associate Head Coach that would eventually become his successor.

5. To have an equity stake in the franchise.

Contrary to most reports he did NOT ask for the moon, the stars and the sky as well.  Then with his agent Todd Musburger on a red-eye flight to LAX Sunday night Phil was instead woken from his sleep around midnight with a call from Kupchak saying they decided to go with D’Antoni.  As you can imagine this has turned into a round of Phil-said Mitch-said and I don’t really think Phil is crazy enough to think that any team would give him all five of those demands.  If he is, more power to him.  Rather I tend to agree with Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski that the Zen Master grossly overplayed his hand in the initial negotiations and got burned because of it.

In D’Antoni the Lakers get someone who is very familiar with Steve Nash, has Kobe & Dwight Howard’s endorsement and will play the up tempo style that Dr. Buss has been pining for since the Showtime Era ended.  You can expect to see a steady diet of Nash/Howard pick-and-rolls with Bryant in the strong side corner and another 3-point shooter in the opposite corner.  That leaves only Gasol on the outside looking in when it comes to fit, and I expect to see him traded by the 2/21 deadline for a “stretch 4” and some more depth/athleticism on the wings.

D’Antoni’s price tag was much cheaper (3-years/$12 million) than Phil’s and Mike will be a “company man” when it comes to everything else but he’s by no means what I’d consider a perfect fit.  Mike D is known to utilize a VERY short rotation, often times going only seven players deep, relying on his starters to play heavy minutes and carry the load.  LA is far too old to succeed with this approach, but their bench is not exactly deep either, which will no doubt tempt D’Antoni to fall back to what he knows.  Then there’s the whole thing (verified by numerous sources) about Mike going weeks without working on, or even talking about, defense in practice.  While he’ll no doubt improve the offense to staggering levels of effiecency and entertainment, defense wins Championships and D’Antoni has never been past the Conference Finals.

As hard as it may be for some of you to believe neither Jackson nor D’Antoni were the top two names on my list.  Instead I preferred two old dogs that would have appreciated their opportunity and coached to their squad’s strengths rather than make the team fit their system (the triangle/7-seconds or less).  Both Jeff Van Gundy and Mike Fratello are defensive oriented guys whose teams consistently played slow half-court basketball.  They also both always tailored their offenses to their talent on hand.  JVG was my first choice just because I think everything he says about the Lakers on TV is dead on and he has the cache to command the player’s respect (well…maybe not Howard’s).  “The Czar” would have been out of left field for most pundits but he has all the same qualities as JVG minus being Stan’s brother.

In the end LA undoubtedly made the right decision to move on from Brown when they did and only time will tell if D’Antoni is really the man for the job.  Mike just had his left knee replaced on 11/1 and hasn’t been cleared for air travel yet so he may not be roaming the sidelines for another two weeks.  I don’t think the Laker side you see now is the one that will finish the season (sorry Pau…it’s been nice) so they are definitely still in the hunt.  Can they beat Miami though?  I have my doubts…