Luke Walton Must Introduce the Los Angeles Lakers to Modern NBA Basketball

The Los Angeles Lakers are at rock bottom but believe they’ve found the coach who can shepherd them back into title contention. 

In what’s far and away the most sensible, comfortable move it could’ve made, Los Angeles replaced Byron Scott with Golden State Warriors assistant coach Luke Walton on Friday night.

The 36-year-old was the only candidate L.A. actually interviewed, per ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, which speaks to the NBA’s problematic head coach selection process—something similar to the NFL’s Rooney Rule would be nice—but, nonetheless, looks like a home run hire. 

Walton, who received three votes for Coach of the Year after leading the Warriors to an NBA-record 24-0 start (in Steve Kerr’s absence, who was out due to medical reasons), can brush cobwebs off an organization that’s long refused to abandon the defunct philosophy that bred so much success in the past.

In a way, Lady Luck kissed the Lakers once again; the timing of it all couldn’t be more perfect: The most sought-after candidate in years—who just so happens to already have strong ties to L.A.—ascends just as the Lakers can’t plunge any further. 

Yes, Walton has minimal experience calling the shots. His all-time record technically stands at 0-0. But he understands the game and knows how to communicate with people.

“Players expect honesty, and as long as we have a relationship and they feel that I’m not trying to get anything over on them, I can be laid-back, and then I can still pull them aside and tell them that they’re messing up, that they need to do something better. They respect it, and they respond to it,” Walton told the Bay Area News Group’s Diamond Leung when he was Golden State’s interim head coach earlier this year.

“The guys know that…if I see laziness happening or we’re not playing at a certain level, it’s my job without Steve here to step up. And I’d be cheating them and cheating our team if I didn’t say anything.”

Walton already has three rings (two as a player with L.A.) and has been around Hall of Fame basketball minds his entire life, from Lute Olson to Phil Jackson to Kerr. 

In this new setting, his natural charisma should engender tranquility among a young Lakers team that never responded to Scott’s harsh ways. Nobody knows for sure how players like D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and (restricted free agent) Jordan Clarkson will react to Walton, but it’s unlikely their new coach will repeatedly throw them under the bus in postgame press conferences or question their physical and mental toughness on a weekly basis. 

That change alone could do wonders for the team’s collective psyche. The Warriors didn’t go 73-9 because Kerr chose Walton to sit in his chair. But after he was tossed the keys, Walton …

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