Mike Brown, Fired

[Triumph36]

phil jackson's coaching itself is overrated but damn is he good at managing egos. honestly, it'd be great to see him back on the laker sideline.

 

[JSS2306]

In no way do I even find this remotely interesting. Phils just being Phil.

 

[blommen]

Phil is going to demand a mountain of money to take the job and i honestly don't think it would be the best choice for LA. i'd rather take Sloan if he was available to be honest and he will definitely be cheaper.

 

[6.19.2016]

phil jackson's coaching itself is overrated but damn is he good at managing egos. honestly, it'd be great to see him back on the laker sideline.

Only in the sense that it could help the Lakers beat the Heat.

I'd prefer not to root for any of the Goliaths, and like I said, I'd consider Jackson the greatest ever if he decided to instead prove himself on a rebuilding team.

 

[kidduck]

James: Brown didn’t get ‘fair shake’ in L.A.
By HOOPSWORLD


by Adi Joseph, USA TODAY Sports



When something big happens in the NBA, Mark Cuban, Kobe Bryant, a Van Gundy brother and LeBron James get to weigh in.

James, the Miami Heat star, was asked Friday about the firing of Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike Brown, completing the due process. But James also had a lot to add about Brown, who coached him for five years with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

“I think it’s unfortunate,” James said after a win at the Atlanta Hawks (via ESPN). “I just don’t think he got a fair shake, honestly. With the shortened season last year, and five games into this year, he didn’t really get a full season.”

Brown coached the Lakers for 71 games, so James has a point. But he and Brown have a long and convoluted history. The Cavaliers fired Brown after the 2009-10 season, in which Cleveland posted an NBA-best 61-21 record but collapsed in the second round of the playoffs against the Boston Celtics.

One reported reason behind Brown’s firing was James’ distaste for the coach’s system. James was a free agent, and Cleveland wanted to keep the NBA MVP. Tell us if you’ve heard this story.

“I’ve got a lot to say, but I’m not going to say it right now,” James said. “I wish him the best, but I just think it’s unfortunate and it’s just, you know, how the league is. They can do what they want to do.”

James and Brown took an otherwise-weak Cavs team to the 2007 NBA Finals, where it was ripped apart methodically by the San Antonio Spurs in a four-game sweep.

 

[Mdog1]

Zenmaster is of course an easy lock for the HOF, but he would improve his standing in the "greatest ever" sweepstakes from a maybe to a definitely if he won with an unstacked team, something he's never even tried.

P.S. Yes, I'm enjoying my crow on the 72-10 thing.

Leading 3 three peat teams, and a repeat team to titles for a total of 11 championhips makes him the greatest ever, and it will never come close to being matched. In order for someone to top him unanimouly they would have to coach 4 three peat teams, or coach multiple 4 peat teams. Even Red doesn't have a case over Phil, and he coached almost a decade of titles in Boston.

Edit: And if Phil were to ever come back, and tried to win with a team that wasn't favoured it'd be a first...

 

[Jon]

James made an important point about the lockout last season. There was very little time to teach anything last season, let alone new systems.

Still, what happened in LA simply stinks of a player revolt. They win all of 1 game through pre-season and 5 regular season games!?!?

Oh, and then when Mike is canned, they win 2 in a row under the genius that is Bernie Bickerstaff?!?!?

ROFL

 

[RaptorFan]

well i feel dumb

 

[Jon]

well i feel dumb

Don't blame yourself. The Lakers are getting weird.

Today they're saying they might have hired Phil but he took too much time to decide or somesuch bs.

 

[KB]

Thought the headline was pretty funny

http://hoopspeak.com/2012/11/firing-mike-brown-solves-having-to-pay-mike-brown-anything-else/

Beckley Mason, on November 9th, 2012

Firing Mike Brown solves issue of employing Mike Brown … anything else?

The offense was (not) the problem


Scoring efficiency is a notoriously weak indicator of actual offensive strength at this point in the year, but there’s just little hard evidence that the Lakers were struggling to put up points. They were 7th league-wide in offensive efficiency and at almost exactly the same points per possession (105.9) as they put up over the course of last season (106.0). And they accomplished this mostly with Steve Blake running the point.

However there were some worrisome signs. Productive ball movement, that is, not just passing but passing to advance the possession and slowly pull apart the defense, was tough to come by. Spacing was always going to be something of an issue for this team because among players that see significant court time, only Nash is a reliable shooter from distance.

The Lakers could still make it all work with the right amount of hard screening and quick ball movement, but unless Gasol or Dwight Howard consistently drew double teams — and the smart teams would single cover them — it’s hard to picture this bunch, with two centers and four post up players in the starting lineup, playing the open style to which we’re accustomed to seeing from a Steve Nash team.

The Princeton offense was not the problem per se, but it did seem to create a strange in-between mode. Neither a pure “bludgeon the block” strategy like the Triangle nor an open, pick-and-roll happy offense like D’Antoni’s.

Here’s the way the offense could have been a serious problem: the players didn’t want to run it and Brown/Eddie Jordan couldn’t sell it. If it made this particular group of stars unhappy and no one could convince them otherwise, regardless of the results, that could be a fireable issue.

The Stars didn’t shine

So Mike Brown and his staff weren’t the most creative bunch. But it’s hard to blame him when you take a look at this misshapen roster. Only four players are above replacement value to start with. Brown had one of them, Nash, for a game and a half, and Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol both look slow and out of shape. So really only Kobe was ready to contribute at his usual level to start the season.

Toward the end of their recent loss to Utah, Bryant tried to take over down the stretch, dominating possession after possession. Maybe he would never come to trust Howard and Gasol in those moments, but it’s more understandable that he would take it on himself when both big men were noticeably dragging throughout that fourth quarter.

As indicated by the previous section, the real issue for the Lakers was defense and without a strong Howard-Gasol tandem inside, it’s easy to see why. Slow big men structurally compromise a defense, there’s just no covering up for big men who either can’t move or won’t move. 14 feet in the paint has worked for the Lakers D as recently as 2010, but a decline in perimeter defenders coupled with lead footed help was crippling against supposedly much weaker opposition.

Another question that the first 6 quarters begged: Is Steve Nash any good any more? You may not have noticed because the Suns were never on TV, had a top-10 O-Rating and were generally miserable to watch, but this is not 2007, or even 2010 Steve Nash. He’s lost a moon-bound in quickness and almost always requires a screen to get free of his initial defender — something to watch going forward.

The Lakers’ Bench! Look away! Look away! AAAAARRRGGHH

Put another way: the Jamison problem.

Antawn Jamison has, for a few years now, been among the very worst defensive players in the NBA. He is so bad on that end that it becomes basically impossible to play him and not be outscored, especially because the power forward position is so vital to team defense.

With Nash out and Steve Blake in the starting lineup, Jamison — and let me remind you, this is for a team that many think can win a title — received the sixth most Laker minutes. It’s a catastrophically bad bench made worse by the fact that Brown left Pau Gasol as the lone starter to play with them. It’s possible Nash could have helped here. Maybe Nash, Jordan Hill (dive man), Jodie Meeks (shooter), Jamison (warm body) and Devin Ebanks (slasher) could have cobbled together a very Phoenixy, Nash-centric offense and kept the ship afloat while the starters rested.

We’ll never know, but it didn’t seem like Browns’ rotations were headed that direction, a direction would might have allowed the Lakers to spread out their fearsom 4’s precious minutes in a way that didn’t lead to complete and utter collapses from the second unit. By my calculations, units comprised mostly of bench players were -15 against Utah. This was going to be a problem all season, one that rotations could help, sure, but also a problem that Brown had little to do with creating.

What next?

If I’m a Laker fan, here’s why I’m staying positive:

Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard are still on the team. Three are not 100 percent, so there’s a good chance this team will get better almost by default. Howard, in particular, is cause for optimism. If he regains his bounce and light feet, he can solve many ills on both sides of the ball. Also, there is still a decent chance of improving through a trade for more shooters, especially a shooting big man. Perhaps most importantly, only five games have been played so there’s lots of time to develop an identity that works and have a successful season full of good basketball.

If I’m a Laker fan, here are the things I’m worried about:

I’m worried that World Peace, Gasol and Nash have declined permanently. I’m worried that my team may have just fired its coach without a clear idea of who would succeed him. I’m worried that there might not be any creative coaches out on the market who, without a training camp or much leash to experiment, can figure out a system that efficiently coordinates and exploits the resources available. I’m worried that playing two centers together for 30 minutes a night is just a bad idea in today’s NBA. And I’m worried that firing Mike Brown may solve some real issues but that the design of the team is fundamentally flawed such that no amount of great coaching would result in a title.

But I’m not a Lakers fan, so I’m not worried. I just sit back and Count Tha Thingzzzzzz.

 

[asiasportwriter]

I am just surprised with the fact that they hired D'Antoni despite of what happen with knicks before, and some may say that he is an average coach and will not be able to make the lakers a championship team but who knows maybe he will do better on this time, Kobe and Nash respect him so much though.

 

[David.]

That headline is brilliant, old school rep

 

[Powerslave]

 

[Jon]

The Lakers defensive rating currently sits a 6th in the league, while their offense has dropped to 13th.

Much of that may be due to their 77-79 slugfest .vs. Indiana. Yay, small sample sizes.