If you can’t put up W’s for the L.A. Lakers, the storied NBA franchise won’t put up with you. Mike Brown learned this the hard way only five games into the 2012-2013 season. The Lakers were 1-4 under his tutelage. Were being the operative word here. ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported this afternoon that the Lakers have fired head coach Mike Brown.
It’s still undecided who will take the reigns but assistant coaches Bernie Bickerstaff and Chuck Person are in line to head the team on an interim basis.
A losing record is unusual territory for the Lakers, not that anyone in Boston is complaining. They’re like the New York Yankees of baseball. Armed with the largest payroll in basketball, the legendary team that once featured hall of famers like Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Magic Johnson went on a spending spree during the offseason snatching up future HOFers Steve Nash and Dwight Howard. They currently boast a roughly $113 million payroll.
Obviously, the Lakers have severely underachieved despite the star-studded lineup. Nash has only been healthy for 1 full game due to a bum leg while Howard is still nursing a bad back that cut his season short last year. But the Lakers’ woes don’t end there. ESPN also notes that “The team has also been trying to institute a form of the Princeton offense, a system that relies on reads and ball sharing in order to take some offensive load off Bryant. The results have been mixed so far.”
Mixed is an understatement. It’s a disaster. Kobe Bryant is not one to enjoy ball sharing while the team itself is spending about $28 million on two players who have yet to pull their weight. It’ll be interesting to see who the Lakers tap to be their next head coach and hopefully Bickerstaff or Person don’t meet the same fate Mike Brown did.
