The news this morning that Mike D’Antoni took the job as the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers certainly raised eyebrows across the Association’s landscape. For one, it was NOT the name that Los Angeleans had expected to hear be announced as the replacement to Mike Brown. Most thought that Tuesday morning, when they held the press conference, Phil Jackson would come limping into the room and commandeering the super team that the Buss family and Mitch Kupchack had assembled.
Most NBA fans know that there’s only ONE guy who is truly qualified to deal with this many egos and one, Kobe Bryant. There’s only one guy who can go death stare for death stare with Kobe and there’s only one guy that can truly hold Bryant accountable for his demeaning attitude towards teammates. Phil Jackson has made a career of coaching the best and intertwining their massive egos and massive talents into a championship concoction and most automatically assumed that this was the perfect job for him.
But as we all know, sometimes the best laid plans wind up staying in the meeting room, never to see the light of day. Most Laker fans assumed Phil would be their coach because usually this kind of stuff just falls into their lap like pigeon droppings do for others. But the most interesting part of the next few days will be figuring how this all fell apart and why. Because in the end, there are too many characters in this drama for it not to be a fun reconstruct for the avid basketball fan.
First, Mike Brown. Brown was hired after Phil Jackson left the Lakers in 2010 winner of back to back championships the year before and having gone to the Finals 3 years in a row. He won five titles in two separate stints with the famed franchise and was revered in L.A. as the guy who was the missing piece and quite possibly the greatest head coach in all of basketball. Mike Brown was the guy who had won a ton of games with Lebron, but no NBA championship. Brown came from the San Antonio Spur organization, a franchise run so well that I’m ESPN’s 30 for 30 crew is already working on interviews set for five years down the road when we will be seeing all the links to that team talk about how they became champions as a result of being a part of that organization.
Immediately from the start, many questioned LA’s hiring. Curious to many since the players, fans and even Phil gave the head nod to Brian Shaw, longtime assistant head coach and Triangle disciple. What many didn’t know is that Jim Buss, brother of Jeanne (Phil’s long time girlfriend) and son of Dr. Jerry Buss, wanted to move away from the slow down pace of the Triangle. An offense too boring for a town too hip. Its why they hired Rudy Tomjanovich the first time Phil left and its why they hired Mike Brown the second time Phil left because both promised a different style of basketball. A more fun style. Except, neither performed the task ownership set them out to do: recreate showtime and win championships.
Brown was known as a defensive minded coach, except the stats don’t bear that reputation out. The Lakers went from the 8th best defensive team in Phil’s last season to 15th best defensively in Mike Brown’s first full year. This season, Brown decided to change the offensive philosophy to play the Princeton offense. There was a good news/bad news aspect to this change. The good news is that philosophically it could have worked given what the team had: the Princeton offense’s main goal is to keep the ball moving and for points to be made through players taking advantage of the mismatch by doing back door cuts and executing flawless passing. They had Pau Gasol, Dwight Howard and Kobe Bryant who all are above average passers (Kobe haters, stop laughing at the notion that Kobe’s not a good passer. Now, whether he wants to pass or not is a discussion for another day), and they had Steve Nash, a former two time MVP and top 5 point guard on the roster. In the Princeton offense, there aren’t PG’s, G’s F’s or PF’s. The concept is to keep passing the ball until there’s an open man found. It depends on the passing ability of its players. They hired Eddie Jordan, the guru of the Princeton offense, to run it. The bad news was that meant limiting the ball in the hands of Steve Nash which is maybe NOT such a good idea considering he’s one of the best ball handlers in the NBA. Even at age 38.
Brown came into the job on a work shortened season. And then lucked out by having this super roster and even more super expectations placed on the team by both its fan base and its impatient ownership. The Buss’ wanted a winner and an exciting one to boot. Brown failed to do that and as they saw the team suffer they couldn’t continue watching it.
The next character is Phil Jackson. As the Lakers opened the season up at 1-4, the fan base and the media began buzzing for Phil to return. Looking at the roster, it was immediately clear to everyone that only Phil Jackson could come and save this team from itself. Phil, for his part, had built a reputation for being able to coach the best players and guide them to titles through his Zen-like qualities. His ability to massage egos and win at a remarkable rate was all the cred he needed to deal with those who came to clash with the super coach. The spin from the Laker end will be that he asked for an ownership stake and for more say in personnel decisions, undercutting Jim Buss’ authority, and the spin from Phil’s side (already released) would be that he was willing to take the job as long as the money was right. But the more I read it, the more it comes down to that the power struggle between he and Jim Buss would be too much of an elephant in the room for even Phil to figure out. The Zen master does indeed want more power in his next location but perhaps asking for it from the Laker franchise was just a tiny poke at Jim Buss and to see how desperate they were to make this team work.
The third character would be those Buss’. Its hard to figure who’s on Phil’s side and who wasn’t, but one thing is for sure: Jeanne is still his girlfriend making her on his side. That’s all we know, everything else is purely hearsay but there were plenty of whispers that Jim Buss and even Dr. Jerry Buss wanted to move away from the slow paced style of the Triangle to a more Showtime-esque offense that dazzled the NBA and the greater Los Angeles area in the 1980’s. Of course it was led by Magic Johnson, who at 6’9 was as unique a point guard as there was in the NBA. Dr Jerry Buss is as close to George Steinbrenner as you will get in the NBA. An owner used to winning; accepting nothing less and paying whatever the cost to field a winner was not happy with the landscape of the NBA. The Lakers seemed to be heading into the sunset of the Kobe Bryant era without being close to title contention, and that wasn’t acceptable. So he, through Mitch Kupchack engineered the stunning Dwight Howard trade (as a result of the Nets falling out), and got Steve Nash for a bunch of second round picks and a bunch of basketballs.
And yet, even as the roster constructed seemed to put the Lakers in the drivers seat in the Western Conference they had entrusted Mike Brown to do so. The moves may have started the clock on Mike Brown’s tenure because of the next two characters:
The next two characters are time and Dwight Howard. This time last year, it seemed as though Dwight Howard was headed to Brooklyn one way or the other. He was excited about teaming up with Deron Williams and playing out their careers together. The Lakers wanted in on Dwight but were getting lukewarm responses from the former Orlando center. Of course, as fate would have it and somehow it manages to all the time, Dwight put himself in a situation where he gave his team very limited time to work out a deal with Brooklyn, and ultimately wound up going to Los Angeles in a three team trade that saw the Lakers give up their own young big man, Andrew Brynum, but keep Pau Gasol. Suddenly Dwight was in LA, and the Lakers had assembled a team capable of battling the OKC’s and the Miami’s of the world and were thrust into the championship chatter.
The problems are three fold: Dwight is not a 100% at the moment. Its clear that he hasn’t recovered from offseason back surgery and will probably require more rehab before we see the real dominant Dwight Howard. Second, he’s a free agent in July of this year having not signed an extension with Los Angeles just yet. Which makes this a probationary period in Los Angeles for Dwight. With an 0-8 preseason and a 1-4 start, the early reviews were probably not good. Third, the Lakers know that Dwight is the link to another great run. They can’t afford to let him walk this offseason given the advanced age of the rest of their roster. Kobe is in his 17th season, Pau is 32 and has been playing internationally since 18, and Steve Nash is 38 going on 51.
That leads us to the obvious character of time and time is NOT on the Laker’s side. Time was cut short on Mike Brown thanks to a quirky 66 game schedule that was more a game of attrition for an old team like the Lakers. Many people had fun poking at the Knicks for their advanced age and yet, the average age of their starting five is 30.4 (that’s without Amar’e, which would ultimately alter their line up and replace Kidd who’s 39 with Amar’e who’s 30 on 11/16 and would give them an average age of 29) while the Lakers average age of their starting five is 32.8 (that’s with Steve Nash, but even replacing him with Steve Blake would still make them 31.6). That’s significant when understanding the urgency to win a championship this year which would convince Dwight to stay for the long term. If all Dwight knows is complete and utter chaos, then his Laker career will be short lived and all those good tidings that came with his trade to LA will disappear. We’ve seen how Dwight can flip flop between allegiances and loyalty and anything is fair game. Besides, judging by their advanced age, they have a two to maybe a three year window to win. Oh and by the way, that window coincides with Lebron James entering his physical prime, which by the way could also result in the greatest statistical 5-7 year run in all of basketball. EVER.
And in my opinion, Dwight’s future is the impetus in all of this. The coaching change so quickly into what promises to be an 82 game marathon showed the Lakers inability to wait for the team to adjust to each other. The Lakers signed a brand new lucrative television deal that will ultimately pay them royally thanks to the Kobe Bryant era. In order to keep them interesting and keep the rising Clipper team in their place, the Lakers have to ensure that the transition from the Kobe Bryant Lakers to the Dwight Howard Lakers go as smoothly as the other ones have: with rings. The Lakers are at another moment in their franchise’s history where they had to make an important decision for the sake of the team.
But ultimately this will show that as much as winning is a priority in the Staples Center, its not the ONLY thing. Its about selling tickets and merchandise and keeping them relevant in a very crowded marketplace. In a few years a football team will join Los Angeles and with their co-tenants having two superstars in tow, the pressure is mounting on a very old Laker team to be champions again. Was Phil Jackson pricing himself out? Or was it that the Buss’ were tired of being held up by Phil without a gun. Any opportunist would see this moment in Laker history and understand the significance of having a winner. While the Lakers will be good without Phil, everyone knows they can be world champions WITH him. And that was done WITHOUT the kind of star power they have now. So what to make of the D’Antoni signing?
Simple. In the end, ownership is always the final say. Forget the fans. Forget the players. While the influence can be strong, a very strong ownership can ultimately override all of them. The Buss’ were not willing to give Phil what he wanted because what he wanted was theirs. All of the credit, and all of the love would have gone to Phil had this pre-assembled lineup won a championship. And that in the end was not something Mitch Kupchack, or the Buss’ wanted. This ownership group survived one power struggle with Phil and Shaq against Kobe and they feel they can survive another.
Mike D’Antoni will open up the offense and will utilize the team’s talent to make them into a great offense. It will make them into as close to the Showtime teams used to be which should appease the fanbase. They will win a ton of regular season games, but that goes without saying. But what will they do when they get into the playoffs and teams with great front court depth begin wearing them out and slowing down the pace. We’ve seen this with the D’Antoni Suns of the mid 2000’s. The only problem is, they were dealing with an early 30’s Steve Nash leading the break and had young, quick playmakers who could run up and down the court and wear teams out. Who’s running this team at a breakneck pace? Kobe Bryant with his young legs at 34? Maybe Antawn Jamison at 36 off the bench? Maybe its Dwight with the bad back. Or Metta World Peace who will somehow be confused into letting go of this self held notion that he’s a prolific 3 point shooter and he’ll run.
Unfortunately the statistics have held that the problem was not the offense. It was the defense. The problem is they gave Mike Brown 5 games in the regular season to make them into a team when that’s never going to work especially given the team they’ve assembled. The problem is that Dwight’s not at 100% and Steve Nash has played exactly one game with this team. So before people begin to wonder about the Lakers and Phil Jackson, remember that the problems don’t end because they shut the door for Phil to return. No, they opened the door to the more obvious problem that now circles the Lakers should they be unable to win a title this year, and lose Dwight Howard in free agency (which would be worst case scenario): maybe the Lakers don’t want to win anymore. May be they are just ok with competing and being competitive and selling out their arena and collecting the rewards of all those Phil Jackson-Kobe Bryant-Pau Gasol-Shaquille O’Neal titles. Maybe the Buss’ don’t want to give control to a guy that knows how to work around their present problems.
Or maybe Mike D’Antoni will re-work this line up and figure out what he did wrong in Phoenix and NY and become a great coach. Maybe this will work out for the Lakers like it always does. Maybe Dwight will re-sign with the Lakers and the Lakers will have one more major move to make before the trading deadline that will make them younger and more dangerous. Who knows? The fantastic part is, the less we know the juicier the story becomes. At the end of the season, none of the build up or the hype will matter because we will know the ending. The best part of the story is now. The best part of the story is not knowing how the movie ends. That’s LA! That’s Showtime!
acebook
witter
The Lazy Eye of Sports 