Bryon Scott, a Kobe Bryant favorite, will be the new Los Angeles Lakers head coach. Scott, who won three championships as popular Lakers off-guard in the 1980s, will sit in what has proven to be a hot seat lately. The once glorious Lakers are today no longer even the best team in their city. The latest head coach, Mike D’Antoni, left after struggling badly to establish credibility with his cast of mediocre players, who never bought into his system. So bad was D’Antoni’s tenure that when he resigned, the normally gracious Magic Johnson tweeted: “Happy days are here again! Mike D’Antoni resigns as the Lakers coach. I couldn’t be happier!”
Kobe Bryant has been saying all summer that he’s happy with Lakers management’s efforts during the off-season, even though LA failed to land a big name free agent to lighten Kobe’s load. Maybe he just means the Lakers aren’t putting anything in his way–and Scott is sure to do his best Copernicus over and realize that Kobe Bryant is the sun in the center of the Lakers solar system. It could be that Kobe really thinks that if he’s healthy he doesn’t need that much help. Byron Scott has an overall losing record (416-521) as a head coach, but he’s done well with talent, going to back-to-back-finals with the New Jersey Nets in 2002 and 2003. It’s not an unusual situation–that coaches do a lot better with talented rosters. The Lakers have Jeremy Lin and Carlos Boozer now, but whether that moves them to talented roster status in the difficult Western Conference is doubtful. Kobe better be very healthy if Scott is going to reverse his losing record in LA. (Chris Broussard at ESPN broke the news of the Scott contract.)
