Los Angeles Lakers: 3 reasons Luke Walton is in trouble

Reports surfaced last week that Los Angeles Lakers head coach Luke Walton could be on the hot seat. While Magic Johnson refuted them, here are three reasons Walton could be in trouble.

Well, now I finally have some Los Angeles Lakers rumors to talk about. Hallelujah! These are the most fun articles to write. It kinda makes me a sports bookie in a sense. I tell people the story, tell everyone what’s going to happen. Nothing gives me more joy than guessing right.

Well, it seems that someone has lit a match under Luke Walton‘s coaching seat. According to numerous media outlets such as ESPN and the LA Times, Magic Johnson had a tense sit down with Luke Walton this past week.

According to the LA Times, the meeting went down after the Lakers fell to 2-5 on the season (The Lakers followed that up with two straight wins, beating Dallas and Portland). Despite the meeting, the word around the campfire is that Luke Walton’s job is safe.

It is important to note that LeBron James reportedly had NOTHING to do with this meeting. Did he really need to though? He started the ball rolling (pardon the pun) with the phrase that pays…

His take Saturday night before the Portland game was much more politically correct, courtesy of ESPN…

"“It doesn’t bother me at all because I don’t pay attention to it, I don’t listen to it,” James said Saturday in advance of the Lakers’ game against the Portland Trail Blazers, when asked about the noise surrounding his team. “It actually never even gets to me really, so it’s not a big deal for us,” James continued. “We need to figure out how we can string together some great games or even good games and bring our win total from where it is now. Because that’s the business we’re in. That’s the only thing we want to do. We want to be as good a team as we can be and win ballgames.”"

Let’s be clear here. I do not believe a word that LeBron James says about not paying attention or listening to the “noise” surrounding the team.

History teaches us that LeBron James has his own ways of dealing with coaches. I went into that on full detail here about a month before the season even started…

LeBron James: his storied history with his coaches!

All LeBron James talk is of his contract, new teammates and expectations. What about the coach. Ronald Agers looks at all of the LeBron/coach relationships.

This is a piece worth reading. If you read it before, you may want to read it again. Based on the research, I believe that Luke Walton’s job is in serious jeopardy no matter what the reports say.

It’s not surprising that the explosion started at this moment of the season. Why? Well not only does Magic Johnson run the basketball operations for the Los Angeles Lakers, but he is ALSO part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The baseball season ended with a Dodgers loss in the World Series 4-1 to the Boston Red Sox.

Guess who has some more time to focus on the day to day operations?!

Let’s go back to what Magic Johnson said about a possible slow start. A quote mentioned in LA Times and the piece above…

"“As I was talking to Luke, both of us were, we said don’t worry about if we get out to a bad start, we have seen that with LeBron going to Miami and we have seen that when he came back to Cleveland,” Johnson said during a news conference in September. “He is going to struggle because there are so many new moving parts. But eventually we are going to get it and we are going to be really a good team.”"

Those scenarios were four and eight years ago respectively. This was not going to fly with different personnel loaded with young players and veteran journeymen. Maybe the tide has turned a little bit.

Luke Walton’s take…

Sorry folks, I don’t agree. But here’s the start of the Lake Show Life’s “Luke Watch”… I’m going to point out the problems that got Luke Walton in trouble…