The Los Angeles Lakers are not a great basketball team. As such, the focus of their season should be placed on developing a young core of talented players. Head coach Byron Scott, however, has a different take on the situation.
In the Lakers win against the Phoenix Suns on Sunday, a game in which they at one point led by 38 points and won by 20, the head coach benched two of those young players, D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle, for large stretches of the game. This was most notable for Randle who only managed 16 minutes in the blowout affair and was benched during the fourth quarter as the Suns made a run. The benching was not only strange in the fact that it happened but also in the manner in which occurred. Randle was pulled out after a possession in which he grabbed two offensive rebounds (he had 12 rebounds in the game) and assisted on an and-one dunk. The second-year power forward seemed to be visibly frustrated after the benching. After the game, Randle was dressed and out of the locker room before the media was allowed in.
During practice on Monday, however, there was plenty of talk about the situation from both Randle and Scott. Scott, who has a reputation as a no-nonsense coach called the 21-year-old Randle “immature” in how he handled the situation, defending his own decision to pull him out late in the game:
Julius Randle wasn't exactly a team player last night. "Bottom line is, like I told home before, you've gotta grow up," Byron said.
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) January 4, 2016
Byron on Randle: "The main thing I don’t like is when you take him out of games, how he reacts sometimes." Byron called it "immaturity."
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) January 4, 2016
Meanwhile, Randle, whose defense was publicly put into question by Scott, expressed his frustration with both the benching and being singled out, offering no form of apology for his actions:
Randle's response? "I don’t think there was defense on the court at all in the 4th and [Scott] singled me out. I think it was a team thing."
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) January 4, 2016
Randle admitted he was irritated. Not exactly an apology: "[I played] 15 minutes. I was frustrated I wasn’t on the court. Simple."
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) January 4, 2016
What Randle is saying certainly makes sense. The young player, who is effect in his rookie season after playing half of a game last year, has definite flaws defensively and they show. However, the Lakers are the 30th ranked defense in the NBA – that is not all on Randle. Singling out young players, especially publicly through the media, can have terrible effects on their confidence and, by the transitive property, the chemistry of the team. Scott has a history of shaming his players in public, especially as it pertains to “immaturity” and toughness. He also has a history of coaching some terrible defensive teams. That leads one to believe that not only is he not teaching defense correctly to his players, but he is then criticizing them for not playing it correctly. That is not a great combination.
The Lakers’ future hinges on the success of young players like Randle. So far, they have not done their part ensuring a rock-steady development process to take them into that potentially bright future.
