Scott set to start Laker ‘dream come true’ coaching gig . . . soon
LOS ANGELES— The Lakers have waited nearly three months to hire a new coach, and they’re apparently making Byron Scott wait a few more days.
Scott said this weekend that he has been hired by the Lakers, but the club insisted Sunday that no deal has been reached. Scott, who won three NBA titles as a shooting guard for the Lakers, told KCBS-TV he will take over the club, which hasn’t had a coach since Mike D’Antoni resigned April 30.
“It feels fantastic,” he said in a TV interview. “This is a dream come true. I always wanted to coach the Lakers, especially when I got to coaching. It’s so unreal. I have to thank Mitch (Kupchak, GM), (owners) Jeanie and Jim Buss to give me this opportunity.”
Yet Kupchak and the Buss siblings remained mum Sunday, extending their strange coach-less summer to the final days of July. ESPN.com first reported Scott would take over the Lakers with a four-year, $17-million contract.
Scott is undoubtedly qualified for the job after stints as a head coach with New Jersey, New Orleans and Cleveland. He was Kobe Bryant’s teammate during Bryant’s rookie year with the Lakers in 1996-97, and the superstar endorsed Scott for the job this month.
“He was my rookie mentor when I first came in the league, so I had to do things like get him doughnuts and run errands for him, things like that,” said Bryant, who played just six games last season because of injury. “We’ve had a tremendously close relationship throughout the years.” Scott also spent last season as a TV commentator on the Lakers’ own network, watching the franchise’s implosion up close. Los Angeles finished 27-55, the most losses in the 16-time NBA champions’ history. The Lakers had their worst winning percentage since the Minneapolis Lakers’ 1957-58 season, missing the playoffs for just the third time in 38 seasons. Scott will be the Lakers’ fifth head coach in just over three years and has been widely considered the frontrunner for the job for several weeks, but Kupchak and Jim Buss appeared to be more focused on the draft and free agency. Los Angeles landed Kentucky power forward Julius Randle with the seventh overall pick, but struck out on every big-name free agent despite aggressively courting Carmelo Anthony and entertaining dreams of landing LeBron James.
Scott could be inheriting a caretaker job with the Lakers, who are likely to struggle just to return to playoff contention for the next two seasons while Bryant’s two-year, $48.5-million contract eats up a huge chunk of their salary-cap space.
They did add point guard Jeremy Lin, power forward Carlos Boozer and centre Ed Davis alongside returnees Nick Young, Jordan Hill and Xavier Henry.