Since the Zen Master left, it’s been the same old story line. The same questions. The same answers.

Who is going to take the reins and lead the team in the same type of manner that Phil Jackson had? How can the Lakers win with an aging shooting guard?

Defensive minded Mike Brown tried and failed only to be followed by Mike D’Antoni who was almost just about forced out. Obviously, nobody is going to be Phil or will ever match his historic resume but the Lakers are now searching for a head coach and this time they can’t afford to mess up.

Kobe Bryant only has a few years left to get his 6th ring so the head coaching position is more important than ever for the Lakers. By steve.lanctot (kb_0563cf) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Kobe Bryant only has a few years left in his career and he has made it clear that he wants to compete for a championship this coming season.

Lakers management already lost Phil to the Knicks, so fans and dreamers can stop considering that as a possibility.

Many names have been swirling throughout the media including George Karl, UNC’s Roy Williams, Derek Fisher, Lionel Hollins, Byron Scott and more but there are really only a few names that actually make sense for the direction the Lakers are headed.

What the Lakers need in order to bring them back to the glory that they have been used to is a coach who understands what it takes to win as a Laker. No more of these coaches who achieved success simply because of a system or a star player.

I think Byron Scott would be the right choice to at this juncture. Scott understands what it takes to be a Laker and what it takes to win in Los Angeles. He helped them win three titles in the 1980s and also has coaching experience in the NBA Finals, taking the Nets to the Finals in back-to-back years (2002,2003). He has also shown the ability to handle star players such as Jason Kidd and Chris Paul during his tenure in New Orleans.

Make it happen Mitch

Byron Scott makes perfect sense for the Lakers and hopefully management sees it that way as well. Kobe Bryant has endorsed Scott which is huge. Kobe didn’t have any say in the hiring of Brown or D’Antoni, and look how that turned out for the Lakers. The Lakers need a leader in this awkward time. I think Scott is their guy.

I idolize/d Byron Scott and Magic Johnson. Loved the 39-win team in 1993 that nearly knocked off the all-mighty Charles Barkley-led Suns. At the age of 12, I loved Sedale Threatt. Embraced Cedric “the Garbage Man” Ceballos as the most underrated swing man of the 90’s and still root for the grinning spin doctor of humor with a dominate unrelenting game and a personality to match it: Shaquille O’Neal.

You see….I like me some Lakers. But I just don’t love the maniacally self obsessed Kobe Bryant. That’s it.   

That was in my opinion (key word there…pay attention), the worst move in franchise history, when the team opted to send Shaq packing to Miami in favor of Kobe. It set a precedent that anyone and everyone was/is recyclable. And Shaq, the man who made Kobe Bryant Kobe Bryant is not ever, for one second, recyclable. 

So I began asking the question: Why do I have to go down with the ship if I hate the captain? Why don’t I get to be a free agent with my fansmanship? Why do I have to keep rooting for a team whose face I no longer support? Little did I know just how common my Central-Coast -swing-state perspective was.

A perfect example of this was documented by our own Owen Main in the Spring of 2011. Main asked the question in this article: Is the Central Coast a Giants or Dodgers country? And the answer was neither. What we discovered about ourselves was that we just don’t take sports that serious here. We have beautiful women, concerts in the plaza, an electric farmers market, beautiful downtown’s, stunning antique architecture, award-winning wine country, great bars, rolling Irish-like hillsides, hiking, rugged beaches, pines by the sea, clean air, low crime, abundance of restaurants, wonderful school systems, plentiful tourism, fishing, lakes and according to Oprah, one of the happiest environments in the world. 

Hakuna Matata.

Here, we embrace the many shades of grey and not the childish infatuations or irrelevant loyalty to organizations that have no grip whatsoever on our SLO life.

So here is my short opinion on the Dwight Howard landing in Los Angeles:

I think the move to land Dwight Howard was the second worst decision in team history. He’s a malcontent disconnected character with a lust for Hollywood stardom. And though I agree that Andrew Bynum was a glass kneed fool with a cheap and uninspired heart, he was, for the time-being locked up longer than one freaking year.

One year. 

In the Summer of 2013 when Howard is an unrestricted free agent, he will do as he’s promised all along by signing an enormous contract with the Brooklyn Nets to become the billboard face of Jay-Z’s franchise. And then what? Steve Nash is 40, Bryant a crippled 35 and Meta World is off in India learning to braid hair and meditate. 

The Lakers now have one year to win Bryant his sixth ring and are still only the third best team in the Western Conference. Not to mention I give them only a smidgen of a shot against the deep defensive minded Bulls and no shot whatsoever against the steam-rolling, LeBron-led Heat. I can name four teams right now with a deeper rotation: the Thunder, Spurs, Bulls and Heat.  And the upstart Pacers are on the fringes.    

So just remember this article when Dwight Howard is an underachieving underwear model with his low seeded Nets teams and you’re stuck watching pick and rolls between Steve Blake and Jordan Hill.  Learn to stop throwing rocks and sticking your tongue out at pragmatic realists with a fair take on things. It’s getting tiring and old and I would like to have a mature conversation.