WT: Byron Scott Regrets Not Playing Vets More Due To Firing

[TheHartBreakKid]

I didn't see this being discussed, so feel free to merge if it is. I saw that headline, and.....just wow. I'll honestly be surprised if Byron ever coaches in this league. It's amazing how clueless one can be. It almost makes me think one or two things.....the FO really didn't make it clear to him that we are rebuilding, or that Byron is seriously delusional. I'm going with option 2.
I just don't understand......How can he not realize the reason he was fired was the exact opposite of what he thinks. Though with Jim's comments recently, and his whole deadline and what not, I can't help but to think if it wasn't for Mitch we would have gone full on 2000's knicks with terrible signings in an attempt to get some wins..



I didn't mind the byron saga as much as everyone else, because in the big picture it was what the franchise needed. Byron was the only way we could have been bad enough to keep our pick last year and have a chance at keeping it this, and the only way Kobe would have retired how he wanted (which whether we like it or not, absolutely is very important for our organization, general fans, etc). However, I guess this sort of negative reaction was inevitable from Byron, with him being Laker family and all and his public expression of him being his dream job. I'm just glad Byron was so bad that no fan is going to side with him in this decision, and I think he was so bad that no other prospective coach can blame us for this move.

[Slava]

It just goes to show it could have been absolutely toxic to retain him for another season. The dude is way beyond delusional.

[ALL HAIL]

It just goes to show it could have been absolutely toxic to retain him for another season. The dude is way beyond delusional.

You and I both know, if he had stayed, the entire front office would've been stripped of their duties next summer.

[ak7]

It just goes to show it could have been absolutely toxic to retain him for another season. The dude is way beyond delusional.

You and I both know, if he had stayed, the entire front office would've been stripped of their duties next summer.

If they fail this off-season I am not sure that would be a terrible consequence for enduring another Byron Scott-led season.

[Mirjalovic]

I thought its just a joke/parody article, but its real. Its just beyond my imagination. How come this guy was a great player and relatively sucessful as a coach (2 finals in row) ?

Its amazing. FO isn't stupid like him. They wanted our young core to be great and sucessful, so If he plays the rookie/develop them properly, FO probably wont fire him. Why can't Byron Scott understand this simple concept ?

Good riddance anyway. Wow


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ALL HAIL]

In reading the quote, Scott is just a very linear, straight-line thinker.

Truth is, veterans, in a very broad sense, do give you the "best" chance to win.

In his statements, what Scott is failing to consider are the veterans he'd be playing:

PG - Huertas
SG - Williams
C - Hibbert
PF - Bass
SF - Young/W.Peace

You're only winning (maybe) a handful more games with those guys.

[ALL HAIL]

It just goes to show it could have been absolutely toxic to retain him for another season. The dude is way beyond delusional.

You and I both know, if he had stayed, the entire front office would've been stripped of their duties next summer.

If they fail this off-season I am not sure that would be a terrible consequence for enduring another Byron Scott-led season.

Ouch! No pressure for them, huh?

What would you do? How could they (hypothetically) save their jobs this offseason?

[ak7]

You and I both know, if he had stayed, the entire front office would've been stripped of their duties next summer.

If they fail this off-season I am not sure that would be a terrible consequence for enduring another Byron Scott-led season.

Ouch! No pressure for them, huh?

What would you do? How could they (hypothetically) save their jobs this offseason?

I am not sure there is a way for them to save their jobs outside of pulling some "Laker Magic" and landing themselves a "big fish."

I just want productive improvement. No patchwork signings like we've done in the past or going only one step further and signing the DeRozan's of the league.

It's hard to get excited about free agency given our past few seasons and I am not sure that Walton is the saving grace for that particular issue. You will never see me on here lobbying or "telling" guys who the Lakers need to sign, because I'm not in the war-room with immediate knowledge of their vision.

I know one thing is for certain and it absolutely needs to get addressed sooner rather than later - they just lost their cash cow and major "attraction." From a business perspective they need to find a new way to get fans to buy those god awfully expensive tickets. This issue alone leads me to believe that those "LA will max DeRozan" rumors may be true. Home town guy, perhaps viewed as an up and coming star to the "typical" NBA fan... someone that a middle-class family would pay $100+ a ticket to sit in the nose bleeds to see.

[Indy2LA]

Lakers fans defending Mitch Kupchak sound a lot like Yankees fans defending Brian Cashman.

It's always the manager's fault yet they refuse to blame the guy who hired the manager

Side note that goes without saying: Byron is out of his damn mind and we're all lucky he didn't get another year.

[BEazy]

I don't get why he's talking all this trash when his ass is unemployed right now. Stop talking Byron...

[dipstick]

Lakers fans defending Mitch Kupchak sound a lot like Yankees fans defending Brian Cashman.

It's always the manager's fault yet they refuse to blame the guy who hired the manager

Side note that goes without saying: Byron is out of his damn mind and we're all lucky he didn't get another year.

In hindsight, a lot of laker fans on this board don't really regret the signing of BS. He got us in a position to get high picks in Randle, Russell and hopefully another top 3 pick this year.

No, this thread isn't about "we should never have done it" but instead how laughable and out of touch he is. Yes, we all think he was terrible at trying to win and terrible at developing the young guys. But no other coach would have fared much better at winning with this group. And as for Mitch, you have to remember that he brought BS in after that terrible Melo free agency year. Everyone waited for so long that there was no one left as a backup. And the FO went with the sentimental coach who really had no other options.

No BS has become laughable because he never took accountability for anything. The terrible D wasn't his fault even in he was supposedly a defensive coach. He never seemed to bond with the players as a mentor. And he badmouths his guys any chance he gets as if it isn't his responsibility to improve the shortcomings of his young players. And now he thinks that winning 5 more games while stunting the development of the Lakers future would save his job? If anything, what he is saying just proves that it was correct to let him go and further ensuresthat he won't get any interviews for a head coaching job in the foreseeable future (except maybe with the Kings.)

[TyCobb]

Write a book, Byron--call it "Everything Wrong with Old School Basketball". Dude was too interested in talking down to others instead of bringing them up.

[Dr Aki]

should've just left it alone byron

the fans would've understood you came in to do a stealth tank job

[crazyeights]

In hindsight, a lot of laker fans on this board don't really regret the signing of BS. He got us in a position to get high picks in Randle, Russell and hopefully another top 3 pick this year.

It was Mike D'Antoni who got us the Randle pick.

[crazyeights]

As far as Byron goes, if he wanted to keep guys humble, then he should have made them "earn" a starting spot from the get-go if he felt they didn't give us the best chance to win. The problem was, they probably were the most talented ones on the roster. Byron mishandled Russell from the beginning. And if you need to humble a kid, you can do that, but keep it in the locker room so as not to isolate the kid and yourself. Hard to inspire great play when you build up resentment, and fray trust amongst the ranks.

Glad we hired Walton who will come in and give a fresh approach.

Funny, a lot of guys say "anybody could have coached the Warriors to that start" but TBH, anybody could have coached the Lakers to 17 wins. Dude was awful at managing his guys.

[Danny Darko]

I wonder if he'll ever coach again. I've love to see him coach a very veteran team and see how his concepts hold up. While I know he took one for the team and was probably told he'd be rewarded, he now has the worst coaching record ever, and I do wonder if his defense first philosophy is just an publicly stated ideology i doesn't actually teach or if it's something that works as long as the players need no teaching in fundamental concepts of it.

I hope we get to see it, but I think his coaching license just got revoked

[Wavy Q]

I feel like Byron has ruined any positive feelings about him from his playing days with his mind numbingly terrible coaching

[Danny Darko]

to be honest i yelled at him during showtime more than any guy. I remember being glad when he went to the Pacers.

[DEEP3CL]

Write a book, Byron--call it "Everything Wrong with Old School Basketball". Dude was too interested in talking down to others instead of bringing them up.

Bingo......that was my main gripe with Byron. I didn't mind the old school approach in terms of coaching and making guys earn it. It was his constant berating and talking about the young guys in the media as if they didn't know how to play ball. Of course young guys don't know NBA ball well but it's not rocket science either especially if you have vets willing to help. We didn't have enough vets willing to help because hell those guys were fighting for their next contracts. They knew those guys are going to replace them eventually so why help them.

[DEEP3CL]

Dealing with Byron was like watching a chameleon, everyday it was a different Byron. But in the end his approach to the young guys is what got him axed. Jim Buss even alluded to it and it pretty much went stealth over everyone's heads. But Jim said something to the effect on how Luke will be able to build a trust and relate better to the younger guys better than Scott did.

Nothing Scott did in his 2 seasons will make me think any different of him from his Showtime days as Wavy Q mentioned it might do for others. Scott was contradictory.....preaching about defense when truth be told he was NEVER a great one on one defender himself. Those Showtime teams were team defense first but had guys that at least could contain their matchups in games. Byron was more open to the media about the teams flaws and spent way too much time dressing them down instead of going to those players and telling them what they needed to do to get better.

Byron's main fault was his communication skills, not that he didn't have it he just refused to use them. The first mistake he made in this area was when he benched Julius and D'Angelo after 20 games and refuse to even tell them why he did it. When the media asked them if Byron told them about the benching they said no. You can't do that I don't care if I'm not a pro coach or not, I've seen situations where coaches in all sports have said they told the players they were benching that they benching them.

It was Byron's treatment of young guys, and what made it worse was that he played favorites so to speak. He gave Jordan a pass on anything he did in a game, and pulled D-Lo whenever he messed up. He intentionally opened up a competition between Julius and Larry when there should have never been one. It was the main reason why Larry had to come to the media and say that he and Julius could play together and that he pulled for Julius to do well weather if he was a starter or not.

Byron dug his own hole and then tried to hold Mitch and Jim to words that even they knew were impossible to hold on to.