luke wasn't the biggest issue with the team but he was no doubt an issue. his rotations were absolutely mind boggling and he still couldn't get anything right after 3 seasons as HC. sounds like he'll end up as the next kings coach. he'll have more success there but i'm gonna guess they're going to win games in spite of luke
LeBron kills another coach and will have a puppet installed. It’s what he does. LeBron is one of the best players of all time, but it’s always going to be a question of how much more team success he would have had had he not acted as GM and hand picked his coaches.
If this is truly a mutual parting of ways and not a nice way of saying they fired him, then he must have that Kings job lined up already. As I said in the other thread, I'd rather have Joerger but on paper I think Walton can be a good fit there. He wants to play fast and shoot threes and the Kings have the perfect personnel for that. We don't know if he's a good coach yet but I don't think he's a bad one either and if he gets the Kings job, he'll now get to go to a place where they apparently really want him and have the type of personnel he wants.
Of course because Pat Riley is one of the few people Lebron couldn't stage a palace coup against And Spoelstra was his hand picked successor as HC in Miami Lets not act like there wasn't push to get Spoelstra out either by Lebron media after they lost to Mavs in finals but Riley fired right back at them with a huge extension for Spoelstra that sent message of who was in control There are very few people in Basketball with more prestige/influence then Riley
Lebron will listen to a strong basketball figurehead. I had no clue what happened in Los Angeles, he probably thought Magic Johnson was a fraud..
I wonder if Jeff Van Gundy would come our of retirement for this job. He floated the idea of returning to coaching last summer.
He was able to bully Gilbert into doing his bidding because of his return to CLE. After Gilbert released the letter after the decision the relationship was ruined forever, but they had the same goal of bringing a championship to Cleveland so they put aside their differences. I'm not 100% sure LeBron can bully the Lakers, after all he wanted to sign there almost as much as they wanted him to sign there. He also knew it was going to be a process and they wouldn't make any knee-jerk moves and kill their depth like the Cavs did (part of the reason why people say they had no chance at winning a 2nd title) There was a lot of Hype around Walton after what he did as interim coach during the 73-9 season but he really didn't have the experience to be a head coach. His youth and time w/ GS really helped him get the job.
It wasn’t just when he returned. His first stint in Cleveland was entirely him running things. Mike Brown was his choice as coach even though he ignored Brown during games. And the roster loaded up with spare vets was also all his doing.
LeBron was, what, 24 when he went to Miami and had won grand total of zero titles. He ended up leaving Miami because he wasn't able to run the show there. At this stage of his career, he's not going to listen to anyone.
i wouldn't mind lue only way to win with lebron is to run his system and lue's won a ring doing just that
The Lakers wanted to keep Luke, but he hired his friends as Assistants and refused to fire them and hire real coaches.
his assistants weren't the issue in LA. although it is worth noting that all but one (miles simon) was let go by the team along with luke i'm interested to see what his effect is on a pretty good kings team. worth nothing that he and divac were teammates during the latter's final season in LA (04-05) so the two are definitely familiar with one another