Byron Scott still rues not playing his Laker veterans more

Author: Ball Don't Lie

May 6, 2016 at 15:30

When NBA coaches remind the press that they “never read what you people write” or that they don’t pay attention to that “stuff,” meaning “rumors,” it’s often hard to believe them. Yes, there is a lot of game tape to break down and meetings to attend, but don’t they at least have some passing interest in what’s happening around the league, and how its participants view their team?

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With deposed former Laker coach Byron Scott, though, we kind of believe the guy.

(Though, since moving back to Los Angeles, he must have changed his habits.)

In an interview with the Los Angeles Daily News, Scott claims that he was taken aback and “thrown for a loop” by Los Angeles’ decision to decline to pick up the option on the third year of his four-year deal, keeping in mind a conversation he had with Laker brass back in 2014 about seeing out at the very least a three-year plan:

“If I knew this was coming, I would have played Lou [Williams], Brandon [Bass] and guys like that a whole lot more,” Scott said, referring to his veterans in an interview with this newspaper. “They gave me the best chance to win.”

[…]

“I wasn’t going to sell myself; that’s just not me. But I did bring up the fact that I thought I had at least another year with our discussions that this would be hard the first two or three years,” Scott said. “They asked if I was all right with it and I said, ‘Yeah I am. But are you guys?’ The answer back to me was, ‘Yeah, because we knew this would be tough and it would take a while.’”

This is all very nutty.

For background, undersized forward Brandon Bass had a solid, workmanlike year at age 30. He didn’t start a game, but played 20 minutes a contest while contributing over seven points and four rebounds a night. Hybrid guard Williams took a little while to come around, but he finished his season averaging over 15 points on 41 percent shooting, starting 35 out of 67 contests and playing 28 minutes a night.

Williams, much to Laker fans’ consternation, started a major chunk of games between December and February, with Los Angeles going 8-27 in his run. Los Angeles was a better basketball team with the 29-year old in the backcourt, but even the daffiest of Laker fans knew that the agenda for 2015-16 included marveling at Kobe Bryant’s final season, losing as many games as possible so as to ensure that the team keeps its draft pick (if it falls out of the top three of the draft in the NBA’s draft lottery, the Philadelphia 76ers take over its rights), while giving the team’s youngsters chances to develop (and screw up) on a public stage.

Screw up they did: D’Angelo Russell spent most of his rookie season shooting below 40 percent, ostensible rookie Julius Randle (who played all of seven minutes in 2014-15 before suffering a season-ending injury) had his growing pains, and second-year guard Jordan Clarkson still has a lot to figure out. Still, that’s typical for any player working at their ages – be they future Hall of Famers or future entrants in a ‘Top 25 NBA Draft Busts’ slideshow.

Russell and Randle don’t figure to be showing up in any of those slideshows based on the early returns, and while their Hall of Fame status isn’t yet assured, somehow they made it out of 2015-16 not hating life as a Laker following Scott’s last season with the team. The former NBA Coach of the Year yanked them in and out of the starting lineup while repeatedly failing to communicate, directly to them in private, just why.

Byron Scott deserves the bashing he’s taken and will take in the wake of a publicity tour that also included radio spots and appearances on ESPN. His outmoded ways held both the Cleveland Cavalier (though that team’s “win a ring before LeBron!”-obsessed front office didn’t help) and Laker rebuilding processes back, and he appears no more cognizant of his missteps than he was before taking either job.

Still, bashing on Byron Scott is easy; we’ve done it as much as anyone else, so we should know.

What comes next – for Russell, Randle, and Clarkson – is the real development stage. The Lakers hired a coach in Luke Walton that franchises were absolutely falling all over themselves to corral, and freed f-rom the excuses that Kobe’s 21.5 shots per 36 minutes and Scott’s presence provided, the triptych needs to take a major step forward in 2016-17 and beyond.

Byron Scott can only salt the fields for so long. It’s true that it will be tough for Russell (and, let’s be honest, Randle) to run a rookie season all over again under Luke Walton, just as it will be just as difficult for Walton to extricate his young players f-rom their bad habits.

Realizing just how many of these bad habits were due to Byron Scott’s tutelage will be entirely up to the Lakers’ young core. The NBA won’t have Byron Scott to kick around anymore, and the players he left behind now need to dig in.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him atKDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops