Do you guys think that Luke Walton is a good coach?

[walker9]

What do you guys think? Has he been coaching well this year or nah?

[RamonSessions7]

Meh.

[TylersLakers]

To be honest, no.

You would have thought with all the coaches he's been around, we'd have a structured way how to play basketball. Outside of transition basketball, this team is awful in the half court. The rotations continue to be a concern. Player development is concern #1 with a bullet. Now, he wasn't granted any favors with the roster construction but some of the problems have been problems ever since he's come here.

You see guys like Budenholzer, Steve Clifford, etc come into new situations and instantly change schematics. That doesn't happen with Luke.

This team will have a new coach next year, barring a deep playoff run.

Also, not sure if you guys listen to the Laker Film Room podcast, but Pete and Darius went in on a lot of these issues today.

LINK: https://soundcloud.com/user-456873398/middle-ground

[-Spyda-]

NO

[Kilroy]

Our problems aren't coaching related right now... They're injury, and youth related... And a result of a team comprised of a hodg-podge of talent...

I think Walton's a good coach for the long term... I think we might be able to find a stronger coach for this season, but we'd be weaker long term.

Not only that... You'd have to have a pretty f-ed up memory as a Lakers fan to not remember what it was like to swap coaches every year... And how unsuccessful those changes were.

[Sedale Threatt]

I don't know if Luke is a good coach or not. But I'll say it again: I'm not going to pin the fact that pretty much everybody on this roster outside of LeBron and JaVale are under performing on him. I mean, good coaching absolutely makes a huge difference. Could somebody like Budenholzer be getting more out of this roster? Perhaps. But I will submit that it's easier to nudge Giannis and Khris Middleton in the right direction than it is Taurean Prince and Kent Bazemore.

[Laker_Kid]

he has weird rotations at times. but i cant really blame him witn the team’s performance. we forget that he’s also a young coach and also learning along the way. there’s definitely room for improvement.

i mean. what exactly is our offense? most of the time i just see guys standing around waiting for lebron or ingram to do something with the ball. what happened to the ball movement in summer league???

[Spanish_Laker]

Average at best.

[Frank Dux]

the biggest issue with Luke is that he’s surrounded by bottom tier assistant coaches.

[Ball so hard]

The answer is emphatically no. I'm not sure this even debatable. Can he improve, sure. What exactly has he achieved in 3 years? One can argue our rosters haven't been very good, Luke is still young, etc. However, these are all separate issues. The question did not ask if we like Luke as a prospect.

Say what you want about Doc, but that Clippers team overachieved last year and is sure as hell overachieving this year.

[Michael Lucky]

Well the team has about the record you would expect them to have at this point in the season. I think he's a good coach, I feel that people have unrealistic expectations with this team. The heat should fall more on the young core for not improving so far.

[Kilroy]

the biggest issue with Luke is that he’s surrounded by bottom tier assistant coaches.

This is interesting to me... When is the last time you've heard a coach be criticized about his assistants? I mean it happens in Football with the coordinators, but in the NBA? Or Baseball?
It doesn't happen... Which begs the question... Why are we suddenly talking about it with Luke?

Because Magic leaked it?

Which is pretty lame as criticism goes... Weak-sauce move. Point to something specific or stop undermining your coach.

[Danny Darko]

the biggest issue with Luke is that he’s surrounded by bottom tier assistant coaches.

This is interesting to me... When is the last time you've heard a coach be criticized about his assistants? I mean it happens in Football with the coordinators, but in the NBA? Or Baseball?
It doesn't happen... Which begs the question... Why are we suddenly talking about it with Luke?

Because Magic leaked it?

Which is pretty lame as criticism goes... Weak-sauce move. Point to something specific or stop undermining your coach.

Idk my specific issue with the staff is just that he needs one guy who will dictate late game scenario stuff if he's not going to do that well. Phil absolutely had that in Tex.

[snaquille oatmeal]

Although Luke has improved our performance every year and we are actually above .500 this year let’s just take a dump on him because apparently we are more spoiled than the Kardashians

[Bruh Man]

Although Luke has improved our performance every year and we are actually above .500 this year let’s just take a dump on him because apparently we are more spoiled than the Kardashians

That Lebron guy might have played a part in us being barely above .500, Luke is an average coach at best and has yet to get the best out of this newly constructed team. Nothing wrong with holding him accountable.

[snaquille oatmeal]

Although Luke has improved our performance every year and we are actually above .500 this year let’s just take a dump on him because apparently we are more spoiled than the Kardashians

That Lebron guy might have played a part in us being barely above .500, Luke is an average coach at best and has yet to get the best out of this newly constructed team. Nothing wrong with holding him accountable.

I like how you ignored the part where I said that Luke has improved our performance every year since he became our coach.
like you said there is nothing wrong with holding him accountable, but let's not kid ourselves we don't have a very good team. the best players last year are not here anymore (Randle, Thomas, etc.). and this year Lebron, Magee, Rondo and Chandler are our best players meaning that our youngins are not who we think they are (yet??). is that on the coach or those players? that's a maybe. is Luke perfect? no, but is he actually bad? imo it is too early to tell. we haven't been in real playoff battles where coaches out-adjust each other. we haven't been battled tested where a coach is the difference. all we know is that Luke likes to experiment a little too much with rotations and it's getting old. does that make him eligible for taking a dump on his head? seriously we are in pace of where we are supposed to be. sometimes we will win four in row then lose a couple in a row. it's ok man. we will be fine

[Danny Darko]

Read on Twitter

Ruh roh... i've been worried about this and damnit Bron, that aint helping. Last year Luke was great outsider of late game stuff. this year he's being jobbed by Bron. weak...

[SlimShady83]

Read on Twitter

Ruh roh... i've been worried about this and damnit Bron, that aint helping. Last year Luke was great outsider of late game stuff. this year he's being jobbed by Bron. weak...

just another reason I've never liked him ... B4 Bum is gone he'll have gotten rid of everyone and only get players/coaches who are assigned to his agent lols

[TylersLakers]

The numbers didn't show it yet, but Walker's game and mental approach were changing. In the summer of 2014, Steve Clifford, then Charlotte's head coach, hired Steve Hetzel, one of three assistants who would help mold Walker into a star. Hetzel drilled Walker on what they called his "pick-and-roll setup game" -- the move before the move. Instead of dribbling straight into screens, Walker would unleash fakes and twitches to bluff defenders into leaning the wrong way before impact.

He might fake away from a pick, and then dart back toward it:

When defenses tried to pin him along the sidelines, Hetzel taught Walker to take one hard dribble toward the middle. His defender would lurch that way, opening a runway in the opposite direction. If opponents wanted Walker going toward the sideline, he would trick them into giving him a head start.

"He could take anything I showed him on film and immediately transfer it into games," says Hetzel, now working under Clifford in Orlando. "It was uncanny."

---------------------

Spreading good vibes wouldn't mean much without a reliable jumper. In the summer of 2015, the Hornets hired Bruce Kreutzer as shooting coach. He advised Walker to shift his release point a little to the right. He noticed Walker shot from his heels. He wanted Walker to move on the balls of his feet and his toes, and to release his shot almost while leaning forward. It would be faster, more repeatable.

Walker acquiesced over a summer and fall of monotonous drills. He liked the routine of it, but the results were not coming. After struggling in the preseason of 2015, he approached Hetzel about going back to his old form. "I couldn't get it," Walker says. "I was frustrated. I didn't want to do it anymore."

Hetzel did not feel it was his place to tell Walker what to do. He suggested Walker speak to Clifford. He was sending Walker to the principal's office.

Clifford was taken aback. He knew Walker to be a grinder. In the summer of 2013, fresh onto the job, Clifford invited Walker to scrimmage in the evenings with Charlotte's summer league team. There was no point showing up for morning sessions, Clifford told him; the team would only do drills then. "He said, 'No, I'm doing everything, I want to see what your practices are like,'" Clifford recalls.

Clifford told Walker he could revert to his old shot if he wanted. "You'll shoot 32 percent from 3 forever and be a middle of the pack point guard," Clifford recalls telling him. (Others have heard harsher versions. "Cliff snapped him right back into it," Hetzel says, laughing.)

Walker stuck with it. A month into the 2015-16 season, he felt things turning. He hit 37 percent from deep, and has been above 38 percent every season since. With defenders chasing Walker over screens, it was easier to slice into the lane -- and show off his improved finishing.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/25391986/kemba-walker-never-saw-nba-superstar-turn-coming

Great article about Kemba Walker. And you can see based off some of the clips of the stories how dedicated Charlotte was, including assigning him 3 assistant coaches and bringing in a shooting coach. Hear any similar things about Lakers' players? Each assistant coach is charged with a few different players they work out. For example, Brian Keefe is Ingram's guy. The drills that Miles Simon does with Ball & Kuzma are similar to what Ingram does with Keefe. Who's our "shooting coach?" That answer is no one specific because Magic Johnson talked openly about that last year in an interview with Spectrum. He said that next year we would have one. I don't think I've heard anything yet.

I'm worried about Luke and that staff. Hopefully they prove me wrong.

[Slink]

I think he tries imitate the Warriors' style too much.