For the next week, Lakers fans are heading to their local churches and lighting candles with a prayer that Phil Jackson decides to stay on to coach the Lakers. Fans are nervous, they are doing anything they can — meditating on it, offering rum to Jobu, burning incense to please the gods. There are PETA members in LA that would sacrifice a goat or two if they thought it would help. They are that serious.
Jackson is everyone’s option number one — including the Lakers front office. They want him back. But what if he decides turning it up to 11 was enough?
Then the Lakers have to choose between Byron Scott and Brian Shaw.
Not exactly those two, although they would be the frontrunners. But Scott and Shaw represent the philosophical crossroads the Lakers would be at. Stay with the current system or blow it up.
On one hand is Scott, representing a dramatic break with the triangle offense. Jerry Buss much preferred the Showtime era style of play to the triangle. Hey, we all did. But there is no arguing with success, and the triangle works. And Buss is too smart to dump Jackson just because the offense isn’t aesthetically pleasing enough. Jackson would have to do something far worse, like sleep with the owner’s daughter… oh, wait, bad example.
Scott would bring some old-school Laker history, a direct tie to the Showtime era. His offenses have been point-guard led (Jason Kidd and Chris Paul). The Lakers would run again. The coach wouldn’t just sit there, he’d stalk the sidelines and yell at the refs giving a cathartic release to the fans that Jackson does not.
There would need to be other changes. Derek Fisher may be the worst point guard in running the break in the Association, the Lakers would need someone else in that role (or, just keep Jordan Farmar and turn him loose). The role players would need to be less Luke Walton and more Shannon Brown.
And the Lakers fans could hope that inevitable mutiny of the players to Scott — it happened in New Jersey quite publicly and the wave was just about to break public in New Orleans when he was let go — came after this championship window was closed. Scott is not a long-term answer, but the Lakers may not care, because it would be Showtime again. The fun would be back.
But you know what is the most fun? Winning.
And the triangle wins. This Lakers roster wins. And it was built for the triangle.
That brings us to Brian Shaw. The Lakers lead assistant. He represents keeping things largely the same, not trying to make a big philosophical shift in the middle of a championship window. Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream.
Shaw has no head coaching experience and Scott has led a team to two NBA Finals — where Scott’s team lost to the Lakers and the triangle. Shaw can get the players ear because they know him. Kobe trusts him, Kobe has been through the wars of the playoffs with him as a player and coach. Read Phil Jackson’s last book — before Game 5 of the 2004 NBA finals it was Shaw Kobe was calling as his confidant. Kobe trusts him, and if he does the team will.
The Lakers have won two consecutive NBA titles and can win a few more — why would you go with a philosophical change of style right now? Is Shaw more of a risk than changing how you do things, changing on the court systems? Continuity matters? Think it’s a coincidence that two teams that have not changed how they have done things for years — and built to that style of play — were the teams tipping off in Game 7 of the NBA finals?
Shaw is a gamble, but a smart gamble. The Lakers need to be what they are if Jackson leaves, and Shaw is that.
Unless the Lakers are looking for real drama, not just wins.
