Now that the Lakers almost have a complete coaching staff in place all that remains is there to be a season for said coaches to do their thing. Rumored early in the week, yesterday the team made it official by announcing the re-hiring of Chuck Person and the new hiring of Quin Snyder. Both will serve in an assistant capacity to Mike Brown.
Person, the lone holdover from the Phil Jackson regime, has previous experience working with Brown as a member of the Indiana Pacers’ staff. Although Person was a part of PJ’s staff the last two seasons most don’t view him as a true Jackson disciple. That little tidbit could explain why Jim Buss gave the thumbs up to retaining Person. But that’s another story.
Once seen as one of the great up and coming young coaches in college hoops, Snyder come to L.A. after spending last season as an assistant in Philadelphia. Before that the Krzyzewski disciple was a head coach in the D-League after having a successful stint as a head coach at the University of Missouri that ended amid a cloud of controversy. Snyder is a native of the state of Washington so he’ll be getting a West Coast reunion as a Lakers assistant.
Bringing back Person isn’t exactly the same as retaining Brian Shaw. But, hey, you’ll take your continuity where you can get it. I suppose.
While Snyder has a reputation as a grinder he comes with a little baggage. Not unlike the issues I have with John Kuester, one of the knocks on Snyder at Missouri was his ability – or lack thereof – to control his players. Not saying there is going to be some discipline issue in the Laker locker room. But you’d like to know there is a staff in place that can handle the nature the larger than life personalities in an NBA environment. This is also a concern with regards to Coach Brown as well after his…um…”handling” of LeBron James in Cleveland.
Time will tell whether or not this staff will be able to get the Lakers refocused on another title run. Right about now…all we’ve got is time.