Warriors assistant coach Luke Walton, former Cavaliers head coach David Blatt and UConn head coach Kevin Ollie are also believed to be on the Lakers’ list of candidates.
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The Warriors gave Walton permission to interview with the Lakers after Golden State defeated the Houston Rockets in the first-round of the Western Conference playoff series.
Walton’s duties with the Lakers won’t begin until after the Warriors’ postseason is over.
After the Year of Kobe Bryant, the Lakers’ brass chose to part ways with their former head coach Byron Scott on Monday, albeit two weeks too late to land either Tom Thibodeau or Scott Brooks, now leading the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Washington Wizards respectively.
It is unclear how soon the team plans to interview Messina, the widely-respected Italian coach who won four Euroleague titles and was twice the Euroleague coach of the year before spending the 2011-12 National Basketball Association season on the Lakers coaching staff headed by Mike Brown. Because Walton is a former Laker, this has to be his dream job and an opportunity that he absolutely could not have passed up not matter how good things are going up in the Bay area.
The Los Angeles Lakers are wasting no time in their coaching search. Especially, when you consider the fact that the majority of the players that Walton will be put in charge of are still just out of college and are still in the National Basketball Association development process.
While the reason to be excited is obvious as Luke Walton isn’t Byron Scott and brings with him newfound hope, it’s also important to note that he’s also the right guy to handle the Lakers job in it’s current state. Ideally, any National Basketball Association franchise that wants to see success must possess a family-type of an environment inside their locker room, and not one that has players feuding with one another via social media/reports by TMZ.
The Los Angeles Lakers are an absolute mess.
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But Luke will return to the Lakers, the franchise that drafted him and saw him become a reserve player who contributed to championships.
