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| 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.
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