Scott wouldn’t want to go to battle with any of his current players.
Lakers head coach Byron Scott hasn’t shied away from criticizing his players this season. Scott is in the middle of the most horrendous whirlwind of Laker basketball in franchise history. While he was hired in optimistic fashion as a former Laker himself, there’s simply nothing Scott could have done to make this year’s group successful.
As the Lakers are now 20-56 on the season, surpassing Mike D’Antoni’s group that finished 27-55 last season, Scott is in full reflection mode. He still doesn’t have much good to say about his players.
From Broderick Turner of the LA Times:
“I got a sense of a whole lot of them I wouldn’t want to be in a fox hole with,” Scott said after Monday’s practice. “I think they’d end up shooting me in the back. So I’ve got a pretty good sense of the guys that I think are going to be around, that we will build around, build together in this process and go through it.”
Scott and the Lakers lost rookie Julius Randle for the season on opening day. They lost Kobe during the season. Those are probably two of the Lakers’ best players right now. The ineptitude of the roster is paramount, but Scott’s unwillingness to adapt and evolve as a coach and with his system is an issue as well.
Scott was caught in a whirlwind of misfortune in his first season as Laker head coach. Mainly, they lost Julius Randle on opening day and they lost Kobe. But those circumstances combined with Scott’s unwillingness to conform to current trends has piled up as tangible issues for the Lakers this season. The belief that free agents want to play for the Lakers might be the only way for Scott to have players he’d gladly be in the foxhole with next season.
