The smoking gun in these salacious 5 games that cost Brown his job is the Spring Break defense. Frankly, on the defensive end, someone needed to remind the Lakers the season started, even the Earl of Intensity, the Artist Formerly Known as Ron Artest, Metta World Peace, who by the way is now one nickname short of Apollo Creed. One could make the case that Brown is to blame for that lack of intensity, but not to the extent that the guy deserved to lose his job after 5 games.
The most damaging aspect of this impulsive Jim Buss decision is the fact that the Lakers don’t have a permanent replacement set up.
Kupchak understands this, which is why he didn’t want Brown fired but was overruled by Spalding and had to stand up and be the face of the decision for the Lakers to the media. Promoting someone from Brown’s staff on an interim basis accomplishes very little.
Essentially, it’s the inmates running the asylum.
They can’t make any permanent systemic changes because they have no idea what system they’ll be playing. They had business lining up a new coach before they fired Brown. When you want to move on with a new coach for the rest of the season, you want the rest of the season to begin as soon as possible.
So who will be Brown’s replacement?
In the interim, its longtime NBA coach Bernie Bickerstaff, who was an assistant on Brown’s staff. Although Bickerstaff is a good coach, he’s not who the Lakers are looking for.
The Lakers are looking for the legend who they lowballed and kicked to the curb because Spalding thought he got too much credit.
The Lakers wan to go “Back to the Future” with Phil Jackson. The question is going to be if Jackson wants back in. He’ll posture a little because it will help him extract more money from his girlfriend Jeanie Buss’ family.
And Jackson will extract a mountain of money from the Lakers if he takes the job.
The prospect of coaching Dwight Howard has to be intriguing to Jackson. He’s healthy ad he’s still living in L.A. Howard wants to play for him in the worst way, which is understandable.
If Howard is going to have to chase Kobe Bryant’s shots for a few years and be his caddy, he’d rather do it while playing for Phil, which gives him his best chance to win a title.
So what happens if Jackson says no?
The two prime candidates are Mike D’Antoni and Jerry Sloan.
As entertaining as it would be to see a Van Gundy brother, especially Stan, coach Howard, I don’t think even Spalding would want that type of sideshow.
Although I think Sloan would be a much better choice, D’Antoni holds an inherent advantage. In the press conference announcing Brown’s dismissal, Kupchak was quite candid about the fact that he would take some input from players on this hire, specifically Bryant and Nash.
Keeping in mind that Nash and D’Antoni had the best years of their respective careers and Kobe and D’Antoni have a relationship that goes back to when Kobe was a kid in Italy, D’Antoni is clearly in the pole position if Jackson says no.
That’s a damn shame, because although no one is more anti Hollywood than Jerry Sloan, he could win a title with this Laker group in the next 2 years. This Laker group could never win a title under D’Antoni. With all that said, at this stage, they’d be happy just winning a few regular season games.
The Lakers are blessed to employ a GM as brilliant and savvy as Kupchak. When ownership interferes with a personnel executive’s execution of his or her job, it normally doesn’t end well. Spalding has cost the Lakers millions and put their backs to the wall when they didn’t need to be there. He’s very lucky he has Kupchak to bail him out.
Brian Geltzeiler is the executive producer and co-host of soon-to-launch SheridanHoops radio. He is the editor of hoopcritic.com. His father, Burt, was an elite college basketball player for Newark Rutgers in the late 40′s and was drafted by the Tri-City Hawks (now Atlanta) in 1950 by their GM Red Auerbach. You can follow Brian, who lives in Livingston, N.J. with his wife and 4 children, on Twitter.