Get a new coach during rebuild or before contending?

[dockingsched]

I think that was the wrong article lol. I am not understanding this logic. Why were we thinking of rebuilding when we hired MDA? We had Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Steve Nash, and Kobe Bryant? Rebuilding was certainly not the center of discussions at that time in my opinion.

The center of discussions was the only player not older than dirt... Of course we were going to have to start rebuilding. The CP3 trade was our last-ditch effort to avoid that...
Nash was just a stop-gap, and Howard was obviously not enough.

If we were gonna hire Phil it was just gonna be for one year. You could then hire D'Antoni the following year to rebuild. Nobody else was going to hire him.

the prospects of phil coaching at the time were exciting for the fans, but the idea of dwight and his lack of ability to pass being able to be featured in the triangle offense without a training camp seems like far from a slam dunk of succeeding.

[myersia]

Random questions: Do you think the lakers would have even considered MDA as a coach if we didn't have Steve Nash on our team? Or would MDA even consider joining the lakers if Nash wasn't on the team?

i think MDA was as much a choice about optimizing Dwight as it was about optimizing Nash. Dwight was and is the premier pick n roll big man in the league.

Makes sense, but the thing I am confused about is that Dwight apparently made it clear to the FO that he wanted Phil. If this was the case wouldn't you do everything to keep him happy. Dwight never stated that he wanted to play for MDA. I remember a story coming out shortly after MDA was hired that he was upset. Then again understanding Dwight is harder than it seems.

[Kilroy]

Dwight thinks of himself as Wilt, Kareem, Shaq...

But he's more like a budget Bill Russell... Which still isn't too bad...

Point is, he apparently has no idea what his strengths and weaknesses are, or what 'system' would be best for him.

He's more concerned with validating his own self worth by making a team tap-dance to his whims... That's not what the Lakers do. For better or worse, we don't really know how...

So no... I wouldn't have done a single thing 'to make Dwight happy' if I didn't think it would result in wins. And if I looked at my personnel and thought that MDA was a better fit and would result in more immediate wins than Phil, I'd have gone with MDA every time...

I didn't and don't see it that way... Phil would have been my choice too... But Dwight isn't a Triangle player, and neither is Nash... It would have killed their productivity... But I only wanted Dwight if he was willing to learn and work hard to develop his game... He wasn't. So I wouldn't have cared if he was upset...