NBA’s Youngest Coach, Luke Walton, Is on the Level with Millennial-Laden Lakers

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – D’Angelo Russell’s eyes are sparkling as he makes clear how he feels about his new coach.

“At this level, I don’t really know what it takes to win,” Russell says. “So from a guy who knows what it takes to win, I can’t do anything but sit back and listen.”

He is proud that Walton, from their first time together in offseason workouts, requested Russell’s voice to break the team’s huddles: “This is the point guard! He’s the leader!” Walton bellowed. “When he speaks, guys, you gotta listen.”

Russell also is struck by how many veteran NBA players have vouched for Walton’s character. “You got Luke, man,” they told Russell with unmistakable warmth and even a tinge of jealousy. “You’re gonna be good.” 

After a rookie season that was logically disappointing and uniquely demoralizing, Russell has found a new level of excitement since he appeared at Walton’s introductory news conference.

A few weeks later, when the Los Angeles Lakers’ young players were asked to attend a ceremony announcing the naming rights to a new practice facility, Russell couldn’t contain himself.

While the event figured to see the young Lakers looking like dispirited children sitting through a classical music concert, when Walton was asked to say a few words to the corporate folks, Russell suddenly rose to his feet.

No one else was standing. Russell didn’t care. He stood for a solid three seconds and applauded.

It was a surprising show of support, but also of gratitude. Russell feels different than he did before.

“I feel like I know him, you know what I’m sayin’?” Russell explains to B/R. “I feel like I’ve known him for some years now—and I haven’t.”

When Russell, 20, describes how it has been to have Walton, 36, on the court with the young Lakers, actually playing basketball with and against them in informal offseason gatherings, the comfort level he has with his new coach is unmistakable.

Russell laughs at the shirts Walton wears—slit at the shoulders to become sleeveless, showcasing the familiar Grateful Dead-inspired tattoo on his right arm honoring his three brothers. Then Russell pushes it further and calls out Walton for his “overly strong Old Spice deodorant.”

“You can tell him I said that, too,” Russell adds.

The “give” part of the give-and-take was lacking in Russell’s relationship with Lakers coach Byron Scott, 55, last season. It was missing in every way.

Yet that only makes Walton’s arrival as the youngest head coach in the NBA more interesting.

This person uniquely equipped to reach and teach the millennials that pack the Lakers’ post-Kobe Bryant roster is undertaking the most compelling case study in coaching today.

Walton’s life has been charmed, he freely admits, akin to one long-running wink and smile.

Two NBA championships with the Lakers. Four NCAA tournament appearances and one Final Four with Arizona. The son of one of the most iconic players in basketball history. There is little joy Walton hasn’t experienced in the game. And few who haven’t wanted to experience it with him. It wasn’t Pau Gasol or Derek Fisher whom Phil Jackson lovingly referred to as his son after the Lakers won in 2009 and ’10, but Walton.

So popular is Walton that he even found himself avoiding a stalker while with the Lakers during the 2007-08 season.

That unfortunate turn of events long over, Walton spent the previous two seasons captivating a new team as Steve Kerr’s assistant and resoundingly successful fill-in as Golden State Warriors head coach.

“He’s got these qualities that are hard to define,” Warriors general manager Bob Myers says. “But you know them when you’re around him.”

Myers pauses, considers this person he has only known a few years but calls “one of the highest quality people I’ve ever met,” and boils it down to something simple.

“You know,” Myers said, “that you want to be around him again.”

Walton is a warm breeze to all he meets, bringing a trust-first mentality that led to an agreement with his wife, Bre, that acquaintances must contact her if they would like to stay over at the Walton home—because Luke always says yes, no matter the circumstances.

Wind it back further, and you’d see Walton as a kid doing one thing on a Thursday and something entirely different on Friday. Whether beach kids, basketball teammates, troublemaker kids at his school, inner-city kids from other schools…Walton was tight with them all.

Willing to shrug off some issues and hug out others, Walton found his worlds were always colliding but never crumbling. He navigated social danger zones with freedom and confidence instilled by his mother, Susie, a longtime parenting and relationship counselor in San Diego.

Growing up so comfortable with various walks of life when many are reflexively fearful of what they don’t understand is rare. When told that isn’t natural, Walton responds simply: “It was to me.”

Though it may appear Walton’s welcome nature would make him a doormat for nefariousness in the world, he has a firm foundation for what he thinks and does.

“Some friends and family would encourage me not to hang out with other friends,” he reflects. “I’ve always been able to find the good in people. And I stand up for them and defend them for who I saw them as.

“I’ve been told a lot that I do constantly find the good in people. So maybe that’s what makes it easy to relate or connect—because, one, I’m not trying to get things from people; and two, I’m not judging anybody on what they’ve done or the reputations they have.”

Therein lies the Luke Walton secret to success.

And he has Kerr’s example to thank for maintaining sweet innocence in a business built by hard-driving, win-at-all-costs coaches.

Despite his own limited coaching experience, Kerr implored Walton not to fall into the trap of developing some manufactured coaching persona. Players can see right through that crap, Kerr advised.

After suffering anxiety in the preseason as he settled into his role as interim head coach while Kerr dealt with complications from spinal surgery, Walton coached the Warriors to a 24-0 record, the best start in NBA history. They were 39-4 when Kerr came back, and they wound up setting the league record with a 73-9 regular season.

Another kind of victory, though, was all Walton’s.

“Most people would be altered by that experience—in a negative way,” Myers says. “A lot of us would have our chest stuck out a little bit more or arrogance could creep in. And as I told Luke then, it was a testament to him he was the same person—the same exact person—from when he was slotted to be our lead assistant going into the season as he was following his tenure as our head coach. He really didn’t change.”

Sometimes they take Friday off.

A trip out of town here and there. That’s about the only slacking the Lakers’ core crew of young players has allowed in recent months.

At around 9 a.m., they show up at the team’s training facility. They’re in …

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