Lakers interviewed Byron Scott

Good news, Lakers fans.

Sometimes, teams with coaching vacancies keep their candidates closely guarded until they’ve selected a favorite. Only then will the public hear about the preferred choice, often through a leaked report about the top candidate interviewing or negotiating or going through some other step in the process.

But that’s not the case with the Lakers and Mike Dunleavy. Los Angeles is interviewing other candidates and not hiding it.

Sam Amick of USA Today:

According to a person familiar with the interview said Kupchak has also talked to Byron Scott

Thursday on SiriusXM NBA Radio Scott confirmed the interview, but said little else.

“I mean, it is true, I did interview with the Lakers. I talked to Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss and had a great time talking with those guys. Obviously I go way back with Mitch, teammates for a while and won a couple of championships together, so it was good. That’s basically all I can tell you. It was good, I had a lot of fun talking to them. Hopefully we’ll be talking again soon and we’ll see what happens.”

Dunleavy might be stale, but Scott isn’t expiring inspiring himself. Not having to settle for Dunleavy isn’t such a great outcome if Scott is the alternative.

Scott guided the Nets to back-to-back NBA Finals, had a down-and-up-and-down tenure in New Orleans and then struggled in Cleveland. Is he trending downward – perhaps seeing his coaching skills go out of date as the NBA evolves – or is he a good coach who had bad players recently?

As usual, the truth probably sits between. Scott is not as good a coach as he appeared to be with the Nets and not as bad as he appeared to be with the Cavaliers.

But the Lakers can probably do better than a coach who falls in the middle of that spectrum, even if they give the benefit of the doubt to a former player. There’s plenty of time for them to get there.