Lakers: 5 Reasons Luke Walton Is the Right Head Coach

Five reasons why Luke Walton was the right hire for the Lakers head coaching job

Ever since the start of the 2015-16 NBA regular season, fans of the Los Angeles Lakers had their eyes on Luke Walton as he took over as the interim head coach for the Golden State Warriors while Steve Kerr was out of action recovering from back surgery.

Obviously Walton was coaching the defending champions in the Warriors, but the former Lakers forward managed the system and talent magnificently on his way to a historic undefeated start. While the Lakers were suffering through another start to a season with Byron Scott holding the clipboard on the sideline, the notion of somehow being able to bring Walton in to coach a group of talented young players in Los Angeles for the future seemed enticing.

Now it not just seems enticing, but is a reality for Walton and the Lakers:

On Friday night, the Lakers agreed to hire Luke Walton as their next head coach. It was clear almost immediately after the franchise fired Byron that the Warriors assistant was the team’s first choice to fill the vacancy. Though they had contingency plans in place if they weren’t able to lure Walton away from Golden State, they ended up not needing it.

Walton’s duties with the Lakers won’t begin until after the Warriors’ postseason is over. Given what the fans in Los Angeles have been through as of late, though, they’ll gladly wait for the former forward for the team to take his post once he’s done with his current job.

While the reason to be excited is obvious as Luke Walton isn’t Byron Scott and brings with him newfound hope, it’s also important to note that he’s also the right guy to handle the Lakers job in it’s current state.

Here are the five reasons why Luke Walton is the right hire to be the Lakers next head coach.

Next: No. 5 Experience in a Winning Culture

5. Experience in Winning Culture

When you look at the Lakers roster and the young core that they have to likely build around for the future of the organization, one of the things that is glaring about them is that none of them know what a functional and successful culture in the NBA looks like. Larry Nance Jr. and D’Angelo Russell’s one year with the team was tumultuous to say the least, the same of which can be said about Julius Randle and Jordan Clarkson’s two seasons as part of the organization.

Contrarily, Walton will be coming from a team in the Warriors where the culture and environment around the team is based in historic levels of success. They are a team that thrives off one another, handles adversity in stride, and simply gets stronger as the days and hardships pile up in front of them. That’s invaluable experience that Walton can bring to this young Lakers team.

Even more in favor of Walton in this regard is that he was a player at the time when the Lakers transitioned from the doldrums of the mid-2000s into the titles with Kobe and Pau Gasol. As such, he’s seen in Los Angeles what a culture shift from a bad team to a championship team looks like. Bringing that in as a head coach will be huge.

Next: No. 4 Allowing Creativity

4. Allowing Freedom Within System

When you watch the Warriors play, one of the primary things that you realize (especially if you are watching them in contrast to the Lakers) is just how free they are when they’re playing. While they obviously work in a tremendous system, Stephen Curry and company are allowed to create and freelance out of their sets and make things happen when they see the opportunity.

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If you’ll recall most of D’Angelo Russell’s rookie season under Byron Scott, that was far from what was happening in the Lakers offense. Though the rookie proved time and again that he was capable of showing flashes of real magic whenever he was given a little bit of slack in the line and freedom from his coach, the leash remained firmly on him and he was never given the ability to be in his best form in the Lakers system under Scott.

And sure, you don’t want to tell a 19-or-20-year-old that he can do whatever he wants—hell, you can almost not even do that with someone like Curry—and Walton isn’t going to do that by any means. However, he will undoubtedly pick his spots and allow players like Russell and even Clarkson the freedom that they need to really grow into stars in this league. If nothing else, that has so much meaning for this organization and is a big positive in favor of Walton coming to Los Angeles.

Next: No. 3 Attractiveness to Free Agents

3. Desirability for Big Name Free Agents

Allow me to present two scenarios if you are a free agent looking to sign a long term deal on the open market. In scenario A you have a coach that is young and wholly relatable due to essentially being a peer. In addition, this coach also has experience both as an NBA player and an assistant coach on highly successful teams and as parts of highly successful organizations that have won championships. What’s more, the coach in scenario A also happens to be a malleable, flexible coach willing and able to adapt to whatever situation and personnel he’s working with as that’s the environment he learned to coach in.

Then you have scenario B. In scenario B, the head coach is a former player whose been out of the league for over 20 years at this point, but is unmoving and stubborn in virtually every regard. In terms of antiquated logic and cliches, in terms of his system, and in in terms of just about every aspect of being a basketball coach, he’s stuck in the past and unwilling and unable to adapt to an evolving/evolved landscape in the NBA.

If you’re a top free agent trying to make a decision about where you want to spend the next four years of your career playing, are you going to want to play under the coach in scenario A or scenario B? The answer is scenario to 99 out of 100 big time free agents that hit the open market.

Lakers fans are privy to the knowledge that the coach in scenario B would be Byron while the coach in scenario A would be akin to Walton. As the Lakers enter an offseason where they have the cap flexibility and need to sign big free agents, having a coach like Walton that makes LA a more attractive destination is pivotal—and that matters for beyond this year as well in future free agency periods.

Next: No. 2 Accountability

2. Accountability of Coach

Perhaps the single most frustrating part about Scott’s tenure as the head coach of the Lakers was how he would deal with adversity as the leader of the team. Whenever the play on the court was sloppy, apathetic, or just downright bad, Scott would come up with a variety of excuses as to why that was the case. That’s where the litany of “Byronisms” ultimately came from as instead of specifically identifying issues or taking the blame upon himself for not coaching the team properly at any point, he would instead talk about “manning up” and whatever else like that.

Though there were only 43 games where Walton was the interim head coach of the Warriors and though he only suffered a loss in four of those 43 games (that Golden State team was alright, eh?), it was truly remarkable how much professionalism an assistant/interim coach in his mid-30s handled himself with. If it was a coaching mistake that cost the Warriors, he owned up to it. If there was something wrong, he specifically made note of it and addressed how to remedy the problem.

Handling head coaching responsibilities in such a manner, especially when dealing with a young team that’s going to make plenty of mistakes and still needs to build confidence, is imperative if a team is going to become a success in the NBA. Therefore, seeing that Luke Walton brings that to the table is more than encouraging.

Next: No. 1 Optimism

1. Optimism

More than anything that Luke Walton can say in front of the media, more than anything he can teach to the players on the Lakers roster, and more than anything that he can draw on the dry-erase clipboard, what he’s bringing to the organization and to the fans is hope. After the two worst seasons in the history of the franchise, having hope that things can turn around for this franchise and that the young core can start to develop into something substantial is so meaningful.

If we’re being totally honest, we have absolutely no idea what Luke Walton is going to be as a full-time NBA head coach. All of the positive signs may be there and he showed promise as an interim coach of a historically great team, but there’s still no way of knowing for sure that everything is going to work out perfectly no matter how confident anyone is that it’s going to. However, the fact that fans and the organization are confident and are hopeful is what’s important.

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When the powers at be in the franchise and the fans are optimistic about a team, it rubs off on the players—the players can feel that energy when they take the floor and feed off of it in a way that’s hard to define but that is very real. Before he’s ever coached a game officially as a head coach in the NBA without an interim label, that’s what Walton brings as he returns home to the Lakers; and that makes so much of a difference for this team moving forward.