Next month the 2014-15 NBA season will get underway with the Los Angeles Lakers playing on opening night against Dwight Howard’s Houston Rockets. Head coach Byron Scott will make his coaching debut for the purple and gold on Oct. 28 and the three-time NBA champion is looking forward to putting the pieces together in training camp.
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Scott talked about his coaching staff already getting to work with some of the players on the roster. Although Scott’s staff hasn’t been finalized with more assistants to be added soon, Mark Madsen and company have been getting some players ready for training camp, via Bill Oram of the OC Register:
“You start implementing your offense and your defense and things like that,” Scott said, “so you have a good idea in your mind when training camp starts of what you want to do.”
Scott also emphasized wanting his players to be able to flow on both ends of the basketball court next season:
“There’s not a whole lot of restrictions as far as the things we want to be able to do,” he said. “We want players to just be able to flow and not think about it, just react to the defense and I think that’s the best way you can get players to be free and just play good basketball.”
Heading into his first season as the head coach in Los Angeles, Scott will be faced with perhaps the toughest challenge of his career. As if taking over for Mike Brown in Cleveland only to watch as LeBron James leave to sign with Miami wasn’t tough enough, the Lakers are a franchise that expects to contend on an annual basis, putting a tremendous amount of pressure on Scott.
It is an unfamiliar feeling for Lakers fans to deal with consecutive losing seasons, but many believe that is where the team may be headed. The franchise has only missed the playoffs a total of six times in the team’s history setting the bar high for Scott to turn things around sooner rather than later.
With Scott signing a four-year deal, the franchise has put their faith in the 53-year-old moving forward. Scott has a team option in the fourth year of his deal essentially giving him three years to prove his worth.
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