NBA Grapevine

JamFan
aka Don Allen

The Lakers responded to Coach Brown’s firing with their first blow out win of the season over the Warriors 101-97. This 24 point win at home featured 37 points by the bench while Dwight Howard only scored 6 points. It is amazing to watch the Lakers win playing as a team. In their first win over Detroit, Kobe only had 15 points. Overall, Coach Bickerstaff played the starters far fewer minutes than Coach Brown. Kobe did have quite a night with 27 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, and 2 steals.

Which brings us to the big elephant in the room, Phil Jackson. Their was already speculation that Phil was the leading candidate to once again become the Lakers head coach. Then in last nights game, the fans were cheering “We want Phil.” Reports now say that the Lakers front office is also chanting “We want Phil.” Sources say that they will be calling Phil again Saturday to see if he wants his old job back.
It seems like the Lakers lineup is built to be a great triangle offense team, but their are problems with a bringing in Jackson at this point. The obvious thing is that the triangle isn’t all that easy for everybody to learn. Coach Jackson likes to come in, have a great camp and preseason, and prepare his team for opening day. A mid season switch will be tricky. There are only a couple of players remaining that were here when Jackson ran the triangle the last time, so most of the players will be students. Also, Phil likes to have his own hand picked assistants to help him guide the team. They often run the practices while he watches from the sidelines. He likes to be the director without being the orchestrator. Will we see a wholesale removal and replacement of the entire coaching staff? Will we see the return of Derek Fisher as a player coach? Will we see Derek Fisher return as an assistant coach? Just thinking out loud.

Coach Brown’s tenure here was a strange event. Early on it was reported that Kobe was not consulted about his hiring. Many felt he was a nice guy but just not good enough to coach the Lakers. Kobe seemed miffed about the hiring at first but seemed to like playing for Brown. Kobe also doesn’t appear to have been consulted about his firing either, and seemed to support Coach Brown after the fact. The Lakers, who already have the largest payroll, and a huge luxury tax, will reportedly eat the remaining 11 million on Browns contract. What a paid vacation he is going to have. Moreover, if they hire Phil, expect that to cost a ZenMillion more. I guess the Lakers have deep pockets.

One early report says that the Lakers are also interested in signing Mike D’Antoni as their next head coach. Two problems with that arise. For one thing, Mike has not been a coach that has had much success coaching defense with any team. Unfortunately, that is a weakness the Lakers are already displaying on the court and you have to wonder if Coach D’Antoni is the answer for that problem. In the past, his stategy has been all about just ourscoring the opposing team. Also, Coach D’Antoni’s fast paced, shoot first, think later, style of offense may not be well executed by a Laker lineup that has stuggled with the fast break. Once upon a time, Steve Nash was a master at running Mike’s offense in Phoenix, but does he still have the legs at age 38 to lead that offense.

Stay tuned because these reports have just hitting airwaves and we will know more as this situation developes. We will update you on TopBuzz