Feb 9, 2023; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (6) reacts on the bench after a foul call in the first half against the Milwaukee Bucks at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
The Los Angeles Lakers will hire their fourth head coach of the six-year LeBron James era this offseason (assuming he re-signs with LA). It went from Luke Walton to Frank Vogel – who helped James win his only title as a Laker – to Darvin Ham, who was fired shortly after the team’s first-round loss to the Denver Nuggets.
LeBron has a checkered history with head coaches. He wanted to remove Erik Spoelstra, who’s become arguably the best coach in the NBA, in favor of Pat Riley while with the Miami Heat. Vogel was fired in part because he couldn’t integrate Russell Westbrook into the team, whom LeBron reportedly pushed LA to trade for.
It’s hard to argue that James hasn’t been influential in building rosters and hiring and firing coaches throughout his career. Maybe he didn’t make the final decision, but he has enough power to at least push a franchise in one direction or the other.
The Lakers are desperate to keep LeBron in LA – how much stock, then, would General Manager Rob Pelinka and Team Owner and President Jeanie Buss put into the four-time champion’s opinion?
One former Laker has a simple solution to the entire problem: Skip the drama and just give LeBron what he ultimately wants.
Byron Scott says just make LeBron James the Lakers player-coach
If the 39-year-old has so much control in making these decisions, and especially when he’s so close to retirement, Scott believes the Lakers should just acquiesce to what he believes LeBron wants anyway on a recent episode of Undisputed:
I got nothing but love and respect for LeBron … but it’s obvious to me at least, that he’s making a lot of decisions that’s going on in this organization from a coaching standpoint to a player standpoint. So if you’re going to allow him to make those decisions, alright, sit on the bench and make those decisions as well as be head coach.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, who’s covered LeBron going back to his high school days in Akron, said on The Dan Patrick Show that James “doesn’t get involved in coaching hires” and “is very sensitive to that (theory), and he does not want to be involved in that.”
Maybe Windhorst is right – LeBron doesn’t get fully involved. But there’s no disputing (no pun intended) that his opinion is taken into account, whether consciously or not.
And with Los Angeles so all-in on making sure James retires a Laker, it would be naive to think he won’t have a say in who becomes potentially the final head coach of his career.
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Andrew Hanlon is the Assistant Editor for The Dunk Central. He earned a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and has been writing about sports professionally for more than a decade. He started out covering local high school sports before transitioning into a full-time NBA connoisseur. He has been published on FanSided, SBNation and Sportscasting.
