So you want to be a coach? There are worse jobs than head basketball coach of the Los Angeles Lakers but, not many. Talk about being neutered! Everything you have to do has to be filtered through LeBron James. If LeBron’s not happy, nobody’s happy!
LeBron was not happy with Frank Vogel who was fired this year after a disastrous (by Laker standards) 33-49 record. Not only was LeBron not happy, the Hollywood stars and starlets who like to be seen at courtside weren’t happy. They don’t like being associated with “average”. Vogel won a championship his first year as coach of the Lakers but, just two years later, he doesn’t know how to coach the Lakers!
The ownership of the Lakers has now hired former Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham to lead this band of malcontents. He’s kind of not well known. That IS NOT who those Hollywood “ga ga” folks and LeBron James expected!
James tweeted, “So damn EXCITED!!!!!”. While his tweet sounds good, those in the know say James reportedly favored a more “accomplished” coach. Read between the lines and you come up with “famous” as being the standard here.
Meanwhile LeBron and his fans are mired in discussions about whether he is the “Greatest of All Time” (G.O.A.T), a needless discussion about whether James or Michael Jordan or some other player is the all-time best. Expect the new coach to be given a little slack, a little favor, by James, the fans and management for this year but woe unto him if he doesn’t restore the Lakers to respect by making a deep run in the playoffs.
What would help the Lakers is a return to “team basketball”, not an assembly of the “greatest stars” of the NBA. There is no doubt LeBron has been one of the best but as most good coaches will tell you, “basketball is best played as a team sport”. Hopefully the new coach can get his collection of “stars” to buy into that.
CHALK TALK
— Nebraska and Northwestern will open the 2022 collegiate football season against each other. In Ireland! Why? I can think of no good reason for a college to play football off of their own campus in another country. It must be money!
— In accepting an award as the West Virginia College Coach of the Year, Bob Huggins began, “I would like to thank the sports writers. That’s something I never thought I would say!”
— Now we have the transition from college and high school sports to summer baseball. Great Bend, Hoisington and Larned will field American Legion baseball teams. Larned will be coached by Chad Erway and Austin Weiser.
— The New York Yankees are looking like those juggernaut teams of the past with great pitching and guys muscling the ball out of the park with home runs. At 34-15 they are establishing themselves as the elite of the American League once again.
— With the Transfer Portal it is almost impossible to know where your favorite college team stands, especially in football. Like all recruiting, every coach says that his talent is tops but the “proof is in the pudding” and some of those much-ballyhooed players won’t turn out. It is not an easy time to be a college football or basketball coach!
— If you are a professional golf fan these are the best of times! Today’s leaders in the sport are light years from pros of the past. Most of them are physical specimens that work out constantly. They not only play golf but lift weights and run to tone their entire body. Today’s golfer truly is an athlete!”
— Baseball is almost the only orderly thing in a very un-orderly world. If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can’t get you off!” — Former Major League manager Leo Durocher
Buddy Tabler is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune and his views don’t necessarily reflect those of the paper. He can be reached at budtabler@gmail.com.
