The Los Angeles Lakers are not a good team; that is not a secret. They were not even expected to be a good team entering the season no matter what the front office publicly announced. As a result, their season was supposed to be and should be about the development of a young core of players including last year’s seventh overall pick, Julius Randle, and this year’s second overall pick D’Angelo Russell.
Byron Scott thinks otherwise, however. With the team nursing a miserable 3-17 record, the head coach of the Lakers decided to change things up, taking Russell and Randle out of the starting lineup in favor of Lou Williams and another rookie, Larry Nance, Jr. That may not seem like a huge problem: allowing the two young players to come off the bench so that they have more freedom in an offense often hijacked by Kobe Bryant seems like a decent idea. However, the real issue is that it has an air of a demotion for two players who have been among the best ones for the Lakers. According to Scott, the two will continue to get only 20-25 minutes of playing time per game, an incredibly low number for two players whom the franchise hopes can lead the team in the future.
Even more unnerving about Scott’s decision is this:
Byron said he has not talked to Russell and Randle about their demotions: "It's a big boys league. You got to come to work everyday."
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) December 9, 2015
Russell and Randle are both players who have been the stars of their respective teams practically since they’ve started playing basketball. A demotion can be a wave of destructive criticism for two young players (19 and 20 years old, respectively). To lower their self-confidence even more, Scott has opted to not even speak to them about the decision. Instead, Scott continues his public use of “tough-guy” language claiming that the two must be “big boys.” What that means, only Byron Scott knows.
The head coach of the Lakers has been criticized (fairly) for a variety of things. From his rotations, to his offensive and defensive systems, and his terrible record. This may be the worst of all, however. Scott is slowing the development of two young players who need all the playing time in the world in order to improve and get used to the NBA game. Meanwhile, he does not show the decency to speak to them about his reasoning for benching them – perhaps because there is no logical reasoning to be found.
If the Los Angeles Lakers want to get back to being a top-notch contender soon, they must thing long and hard about warming Scott’s seat.
