Mike Brown Fired From Lakers: Deciphering Lakers Misfortunes

Image: USA Today

Last Thursday, the basketball world was in for a shock when it was officially announced that Mike Brown had been fired as head coach for the embattled Los Angeles Lakers. During the pre-season, there had been lots of talks about how strong the Lakers line-up is on paper because they have acquired All-Stars Steve Nash and Dwight Howard. But with a few games into the season, they have managed to win only a single game and the prospects of the Lakers team are not looking good.

This was a tough call given that the Lakers team has expressed the desire to become a contender for the NBA championship title. The agent for Mike Brown, Warren Legarie, confirmed the news that the Lakers head coach had been fired from his post following a bad start. This wasn’t just during the early start of the season, because the Lakers were also 0-8 during the pre-season games.

It must have caused panic amongst the Lakers management, which opted to release him from the contract despite the fact that there is still around $11 million remaining on his contract that was signed in summer of last year.

The Lakers management had been in the middle of controversy following the news of the head coach being axed from his job. It also speaks a lot about the sense of agitation within the team, wherein his patient play does not seem to mesh well with the management's desire to get another ring. Apparently, the management wants to win now whereas Mike Brown is keen on developing this team until it becomes ready to become a contender again. The deals made off-season is a signal to that because they’ve acquired quite a few superstars in order to get the proper form.

Also, a few days ago, a video of Kobe Bryant giving a supposed death stare (which many speculated was towards head coach Mike Brown) while being seated to the bench after another loss became viral. It was only one of a series of misfortunes that hit this team; thus, it adds more pressure to the entire coaching staff to help them come out and be the powerhouse they were being pegged to be during the off-season.

The team's management explained the reasoning behind their decision to fire Mike Brown from his post, saying, "After five games we weren't seeing improvement and we made a decision. Maybe it would have changed … with this team, we didn't want to wait five months and find out it wasn't going to change."

With Brown leaving his post as head coach, it only brings more questions than answers. Who will replace his job as a head coach? Will they be able to do a much better job and turn things around for this team? But the Lakers don’t have the luxury of time. They need to find an antidote to this problem and can only hope that the move to fire Brown was worth it and could bring them to where they want to be.