NBA ? Lakers fire coach Brown, considers Jackson and D?Antoni
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 11 Nov 2012
Mike Brown.
Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike Brown was fired after leading the 16-time NBA champions to an unacceptable 1-4 start of the season and 0-8 in the preseason. It was the most disappointing start in the storied history of the franchise. Brown thanked the Buss family, the team?s owners, for the opportunity conferred upon him as mentor of one of the greatest NBA teams.
The Lakers are in a hurry to win with the acquisition of Dwight Howard and Steve Nash in blockbuster trades at the start of the season. Their marquee players are not getting any younger. When they assembled one of the most formidable starting lineups in NBA history, they were expected to chalk up 70 wins or more in the regular season and end up with a championship. That?s what Howard and Nash are fighting for when they transferred to the Lakers.
However, Nash is still nursing a leg injury, Kobe Bryant is suffering an ailing foot, while Howard has not fully recovered from a back surgery. These are some of the reasons why the Hollywood team is off to a slow start. But the Lakers would not want all loopholes to remain unfilled.
Brown handled the team for just 71 games, and finished with a 41-25 record in the past season which was shortened by a lockout. He still had two years left in his four-year contract and the Lakers would sacrifice paying him the $9 million remaining amount of his pact.
The primary candidates to replace Brown are former Lakers coach Phil Jackson and ex-Suns coach Mike D?Antoni. Other coaches being considered are previous Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, ex-Blazers coach Nate McMillan and past Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy. Assistant coach Bernie Bickerstaff is acting as interim coach until the replacement is announced.
Jerry Buss was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010 for building one of the most successful organizations in professional sports. The winning tradition has to be sustained and they could not afford to be complacent. The replacement of Brown is called for because the team owe it to the fans to realize their expectations.
In the 2003-2004 season, the Lakers assembled a similar star-studded starting five of Bryant, Shaquille O?Neal, Karl Malone and Gary Payton. Malone and Payton wanted a championship with the team to finish their careers with a bang. They earned a regular season record of 56-26, winning the Pacific Division title, and second in the Western Conference. However, they had a disappointing 1-4 loss to the Detroit Pistons in the Finals. Malone retired without a ring and Payton was traded to arch-rival Boston Celtics where he finally won a championship.
Magic Johnson, the prime mover of the Lakers Showtime in the 1980s and had a brief coaching stint with his team near the end of the 1993-1994 season, felt bad for Brown. But he said he was not the right guy for the job. Johnson twitted he wanted Jackson or Brian Shaw, the former Lakers assistant coach; but wished Pat Riley, the long-time Los Angeles ex-head coach, was available.
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