Byron Scott on NBA Head Coaching: ‘Loyalty Is Not What It Used to Be’

Life as an NBA head coach is always spent dangling over the edge. Except for a precious few who are exempt from a sudden ax, the position comes with virtually no job security. It’s one of the most difficult, taxing and selfless careers in all of sports, and a harsh end is always right around the corner.

Byron Scott knows this better than anyone. 

Nearly two weeks ago, at the conclusion of his second season as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, Scott was fired for the fourth time in 12 years.

The Lakers finished 44 games under .500 in Scott’s two years behind the wheel, and in the 2015-16 season, they had the worst net rating in the league (minus-10.7). 

The 55-year-old’s dismissal wasn’t a total surprise, despite steady, season-long progress from L.A.’s young core (D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and Jordan Clarkson) and Kobe Bryant’s farewell tour turning the campaign into a circus. In the end, his record was too one-sided to ignore.

Scott recently sat down with Bleacher Report to talk about why NBA coaches don’t have more job security, how Bryant’s final season affected him, his stance on analytics and general coaching philosophy and how the Lakers can get back to their championship-winning ways.

 

Bleacher Report: Having been around basketball for so long, what did you learn over the past two years as coach of the Lakers? 

Byron Scott: I guess there’s a few things that I learned. Number one: Loyalty is not what it used to be. Obviously. Number two: As far as I’m concerned, with the Kobe farewell tour, so to speak, I learned that I still have a great amount of respect and a great friend in Kobe Bryant. So those are two things just looking back over the past couple of weeks that I learned, but a couple of those things, to be honest with you, were nothing that I didn’t already know.

 

B/R: Can you go a little deeper into what you mean by loyalty? I know you’ve talked a bit about your belief that the team would afford you a little more time to work through its issues, since it’s obviously rebuilding. 

Scott: Well, just going back a few years, that was the whole premise of the conversation of taking the job, that the first two or three years in this process were going to be pretty tough. That was what I heard in our meetings and that’s what I put back at them: I’m good as long as you guys are good with it.

So when I talk about the loyalty part, the thing with me is that’s who I am. I’m a very loyal person. When I tell you I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it. That’s just something that I will not break, because that’s just not me.

So that’s how I felt at that particular time, that I would at least have another year with this organization and with the team to get these young guys even more developed, and hopefully you get a couple of great free agents to come in and boost this process that much sooner and that much quicker. 

 

B/R: You used the word “rough” to describe the last two years in L.A. in a recent interview. Do you have any regrets?

Scott: No. Like I said, it was rough because I’m a competitor. I’m a winner. So every night that I went home after a game that we lost, it takes its toll. It eats at you. There wasn’t a whole lot of nights that I did get a whole night of sleep.

It was one of those last couple years where you just woke up often trying to figure out what you can do to help players get better, and what you can do as a coach to get better as well, so it was a rough two years, but it wasn’t something that I didn’t expect.

Like I said, our conversations, I knew that those two or three years would be tough, and I’ve always prided myself at having a strong back and having the type of characteristics that could handle situations like that. 

 

B/R: How would you describe your relationship with the Lakers’ front office? Did they ever influence lineups or rotations? What was your dialogue like? 

Scott: No, they never influenced lineups or rotations or anything like that. I mean, there were times where [general manager] Mitch [Kupchak] would want me to play the young guys more minutes, but that was one of those things where you want those guys to get as much experience as possible when you know you’re not going anywhere.

But also I had to juggle in KB, when he was going to play, to make sure he got his minutes as well. So, a little bit of a juggling act, but they never told me about changing lineups and things like that.

 

B/R: How did this stint in Los Angeles compare to your time as head coach in New Jersey, New Orleans and Cleveland?

Scott: They’re three different situations. In New Jersey I had a lot of success. In New Orleans I had a lot of success as well. So, obviously, the last two seasons here I didn’t have much success as far as what we wanted to accomplish, if you look at just the wins and losses.

But I think the success was developing our young guys. Jordan Clarkson continued to get better. Julius Randle got better. And if you look at D’Angelo from the start of the season to the end of the season, he got better. Larry Nance got better. So it was about developing our young guys over the last couple seasons, and I thought we were very successful in doing that. 

Those are three totally different situations and all three of them had …

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