The Lakers did not go out and get Steve Nash and Dwight Howard to have a team that was going to take a while to maybe come together. Their model wasn’t the 2010 Miami Heat, who started 9-8 but stuck with Erik Spoelstra and didn’t have Pat Riley coming to take his job. The Lakers wanted to be the 2008 Celtics — a 20-2 start on the road to a ring.
The Lakers instead were 1-4 with a lot of questions and rather than wait they acted and fired Mike Brown. In explaining why at a press conference Friday, Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak said it was about the bottom line — wins and losses.
“You can argue ‘was last season a part of the process?’ ‘Was the preseason part of the process?’ But after five games we just felt we weren’t winning, we weren’t seeing improvement and we made a decision,” Kupchak said. “Maybe it would have changed a month down the road or three months down the road. But with this team we didn’t want to wait three months and then find out it wasn’t going to change.”
Kupchak said he was not aware of any player input on the decision (not sure I believe him there). Was this a panic button move?
“(This decision) wasn’t made out of panic,” Kupchak said. “We were aware of this team’s progress through training camp, through the beginning of the season. Only yesterday did we come to the decision to make a change.”
Among Brown’s flaws is a penchant for making things more complicated than they need to be, and Kupchack hinted at that when asked about interim coach Bernie Bickerstaff.
“I expect he’ll make things simpler tonight,” Kupchak said.
Kupchak also talked about working to put together a list of coaches they want to speak with, but added they have not yet talked with anyone. While he said he would consider an assistant on another team — hello Brian Shaw — that more likely it would be an experienced coach not currently employed. Like the guys on this list.
But what about Phil Jackson?
“When there’s a coach like Phil Jackson, one of the all time greats, and he’s not coaching you’d be negligent not to be aware,” Kupchack said in what is a pretty neutral statement.