Lakers: Five reasons Byron Scott must be fired this season
By Tom West
2) From development strategies to defense, Scott doesn’t instill the right mindset
Besides lineup issues, Scott’s mindset seems completely off with both the aim for this team and the way they should play. He even admitted this season that he isn’t always focused on developing the young players. That’s now clear from the recent benching of Russell and Randle, but his approach to the team goes beyond a worrying decision. It shows that his mindset is in the wrong place all together, and it shows that he’s trying to achieve something that shouldn’t even be a goal right now.
The Lakers should want to win some games, but first and foremost, above anything else, the goal should be development. Developing all the young players possible should be the idea right now.
That’s just one element of his bizarre coaching, though. The real purpose of this segment is to look at the kind of attitude and effort he’s instilling in the team, which (you guessed it) is also entirely wrong.
Against the Timberwolves on Wednesday night, this aspect of the team was on full display. From the times they failed to box out, to multiple players simply watching Karl-Anthony Towns grab offensive boards and lay them in without even contesting, the defensive heart of the Lakers is often nowhere to be found. Some players putting in the work at that end of the floor simply isn’t enough. If they want to progress going forward, they need to have a passion to play defense instilled early, and that’s a part of their culture that needs to be focused by their coach.
Scott, however, has failed to do that. Great defensive coaches like Tom Thibodeau get at their guys for that kind of play, and they’ll drill into them how to defend in transition, rotate and help effectively, switch on pick-and-rolls, and generally hustle throughout the game. Yet again, Scott has failed to do that.
He may not have much talent to work with, but rebounding and defense can be effective purely through effort alone. If Scott had done a better job of working on this with the Lakers, maybe they wouldn’t rank 22nd in rebounds per game and 29th in defensive efficiency.
Next: Tanking is not the right plan for the Lakers