Why Don’t The Lakers Have A Coach Yet? | The Bill Simmons Podcast

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo discuss why the Lakers does not have a coach yet.

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and I was looking at the history of the Lakers since 2012 they’ve had Mike Brown Mike dantony Byron Scott Luke Walton Frank vogl and Darvin ham and new coach X as their head coaches that’s seven coaches in uh 12 years and it seems like JJ is the leader in the clubhouse but as you watch the Lakers from afar do you feel like they have a firm grip on the steering wheel just in general what’s your take I didn’t think it was embarrassing when they made offered a Hurley and then he turned it down because I saw a lot of that now if you want to look at the whole stretch of it yes it does feel a little weird and it it feels like there’s just a lot of different information flying out there like how does JJ reick go from the guy to then the hurly weekend to then there was the report and sometimes this is just wording and if somebody has to title three podcasts a week there’ll be times I’m like I just want to hit send on this thing and I don’t care how this is framed but to say that Ric now moves to the Forefront when that one interview yeah and then it was like so who was ahead of him it was like I guess Hurley was and then where’s bgo and all this because I just hope bgo gets it because it’s he’s a great coach like I did this whole coaching thing and I wish I had talked about how like when I force myself to watch a team that doesn’t have a great record like find a coach you like though find somebody in this if you’re always mad about people never pointing it out then you have to do it like find somebody and brego was always like one of those guys for me so so so it’s like when it’s like when Bill Burr was the Comics comic yes it’s exactly before he became a huge star it’s like the other Comics love Bill Burr then it was Shane goas it was like Shane goas love that guy very good strong strong for a man B so bgo is the comic’s comic coach is coach that’s how I see it uh it just I think all of us are living like this fictional version of it so we don’t know and that’s why it seems weird does that make any sense I agree but what’s going to be even weirder is if Cleveland just hires James burgo tomorrow because there’s not a lot of coaching candidates left I mean part of the reason you hire a coach relatively fast is because every summer there’s a certain number of qualified candidates available and then they all get hired and they’ve kind of missed the boat on that I’ll tell you another thing and you know we both like JJ and I think he’s super smart and I think really wants to coach I think he’s put a lot of thought into it if I was the Lakers I would be super concerned about the NBA first-time head coaches with no coaching experience list do you want me to Rattle this off have you looked at this I do yeah the last one was Steve Nash with the 21 Nets and I still feel like Nash should have been a good coach and maybe he was look at his record it’s actually when you look it up you go oh my God he he actually did all right considering yeah they came within one what a half inch of KDs on the line of beating the Bucks and that’s it no but I whenever I look at his winning percentage he won 58% of his games now you could say okay well the team is pretty good I considering what a headache that was for him yeah I think that’s a very easily forgettable number in that like oh he was bad and they fired him or whatever he when he was hired people were really pissed about it wonder what that was Derek fiser in 2004 with the Knicks which started his incredible cycle of NBA to WNBA to high school basketball in La over the course of 10 years he also was paid I think the he had the seventh highest salary out out of the jump yeah Steve Kerr with the 2014 Warriors now this was we don’t know yet no but it was a no coaching experience thing but there’s a huge asteris with this because a his two coaches were Phil Jackson and Greg papovich so he had two of the best four coaches of all time as the only coaches he had for the last three4 of his career then the other thing was he was the Phoenix GM for like four years and was with Alvin Gentry every day and it was just around a team in that kind of day-to-day decision seeing what it takes seeing all the things that pop up so even though he had no coaching experience I I almost can’t count him because I feel like he did whatever his experience was as GM every day being around the team is something more than not being around the team Jason kid 2013 Nets Mark Jackson 2011 Golden State Vinnie Del Negro 2008 Chicago Kevin mccale 2005 Minnesota Isaiah Thomas 2000 Indie and Doc Rivers 1999 Orlando and then it goes backwards to Larry Bird EML Car Magic Johnson Quinn Buckner Dan Isel one of the van arales and Paul Silas and and I mentioned this because there’s 18 guys only three of those I can’t remember and I’m not going to look it up only three of the 18 that I just mentioned reached round two of the playoffs Steve Kerr Larry Bird and Steve Nash 10 of the 18 coaches first timers never made the playoffs the point is I think it’s hard to just step in and Coach a team and I think we’re all glossing over that because if somebody’s smart but you know even you look at the difference of Missoula from last year to this year it’s like night and day um I just wonder if this is harder than we gave it credit for what are your thoughts I also think the industry would come up with a string of this like NBA coaching right now is is chaos it’s a twoyear job yeah it’s a two it’s actually people so saw this being debated like would you even want it it’s like [ __ ] I’ve never wanted it more I mean again I’m not talking about me but if you were in that world be like all right so the salaries are are making a massive like hey the cap goes up Spike the average annual Sal in the top end numbers right now for Kerr and papovich and spoler and this kind of stuff and the Monty Williams number so you’re coming in going all right well I’ve got to be at like eight figures if I have any kind of juice or any kind of Leverage and that’s where the Lakers probably screwed up on the Hurley thing is if they really wanted to grab him out of Yukon did they screw up though or did they want him did they ever want him in the first place I don’t know because that offer wasn’t a good enough offer and they can’t they can’t in a million years have thought that he was that was gonna be the offer and by the way why didn’t he counter there a negotiation I just and then why did he do this entire day uh PR tour about the whole offer I I thought I thought the whole thing start to finish was one of the weirdest stories in the recent history of the league I still don’t know for sure if the Lakers even want him as a coach I don’t know how he came out of nowhere why wasn’t he the name that got mentioned in the beginning of May did he ever really want to leave Yukon ginoo was making jokes about it I thought Ethan Sherwood Strauss a really good piece about it this weekend just in general I’ve I’ve you it’s a rare basketball story where it’s over and I’m like I still don’t really know what happened were they just trying to leverage JJ which I espoused to you a week ago when conspiracy bill came in were they just trying to leverage JJ to get get him to knock his price down by pretending they’re interested in somebody else I don’t know are they just a mess as an organization is it true that it’s just Linda and Kurt rambus and jeie bus they just like hang out on a porch and figure out what’s gonna happen with the Lakers because I think that might be true I actually think that might be the Lakers they like go out to dinner at Craigs and there and Kurt’s like I’ll have the ve chop and then Genie’s like oh have the salmon and Linda’s like how’s the brand Xeno tonight and it’s like it’s great and then they’re just eating like what should we do about a coach what do you think Branzino has been huge for a couple years brano’s on an incredible two three bro decade yeah a lot of people are saying that you think it’s a decade you know the moves uh the years move fast it may be a decade but it feels like just yesterday I was like what bran Xena’s in I think all of that’s fair seriously though I think all of that’s fair the hurly part of it that I think is the funniest thing is he went on with everybody after to explain why any speculation about it was wrong which I thought was like he had one specific quote where he had said Oh I thought the silliest take was that this was a leverage play 100% was what are you talking about what like why how was it not like why why did you point so specific to that which I think was a completely reasonable thing which by the way no one would be on your case about right nobody would other than the hardest core husk fans that wouldn’t want you to leave so I think JJ probably my guess would be like can he’s the firsttime guy they were like well that’s not like we know what the numbers are for head coaches but that’s not your number and I would guess that JJ could say yeah but my number isn’t about my lack of Co you have to convince me to take job this is what it will take right because I have a long Runway potentially depending on what he does in the media and there’s no reason to put a cap on anything for JJ but what like we touched on this already I think was it last week yeah it was seven days ago when we laid out we laid out this whole thing and by the way it was right yeah so that’s that’s what I wonder well but the other funny thing about this rillo is so there are two choices here are a head coaching a head coach with no coaching experience which is the results are checkered to say the least you know what else is checkered bringing a guy in from college to be a pro coach that’s also a thing that has pretty much never worked with with a couple of uh a couple of zags Brad Stevens Donovan’s been think Donovan’s been good solid would you say above average I’d say above average but for the most part it’s been a lot of long Krueger PJ carisimo um there’s been just been a lot of bad ones I remember writing about it a million years ago it’s really hard it’s apples and oranges is going from college to Pro patino caliper like a lot we’ve watched a lot of people fail Lon Krueger Lon Krueger Freddy hyberg [Music]