Ranking 5 worst coaching hires in Los Angeles Lakers history

1. Byron Scott (2014-2016)

The third head coach on this list to have won an NBA championship with the Lakers as a player before bungling his chance as the head honcho, Byron Scott played with the Lakers from 1983 to 1993, winning three rings. He went on to become a very successful head coach, leading the New Jersey Nets to back-to-back NBA Finals appearances in the early 2000s in his second and third years on the job.

He was also impressive at the helm of the Hornets, where he started his head coaching career inauspiciously, going 2-29. And no, that’s not a typo. However, by his fourth year there, he had led them to the second-best record in the West and earned Coach of the Year honors. After that, he moved on to the post-LeBron James Cleveland Cavaliers, which is when it started to go downhill for Mr. Scott.

His Cavs won just 27 percent of their games over his three years there and he was fired once again in 2013. Despite that, the Lakers came calling a year later and hired Scott to be their head coach even with the negative stigma those Cavs years put on him. In his first year with L.A. in 2014-15, they set a franchise record for fewest wins, with 21. Scott had no control over the young and immature players on that team, and Bryant could not have been more unimpressed.

Impressively, he broke the same record the next year, racking up 17 victories in the 2015-16 campaign, also known as Kobe’s farewell tour. Scott was predictably let go thereafter, having won just 38 games over two full seasons, numbers that are still hard to believe for a franchise as proud as the Lakers. Shortly thereafter, Scott announced his retirement from coaching, a sad ending to a coaching career that had started out so full of promise.