The coaching search is beginning to heat up for the Los Angeles Lakers as the team has already been granted permission to speak with two leading candidates in Warriors assistant Luke Walton and Spurs assistant Ettore Messina.
While those two are the early front-runners plenty of other names, have been floating around as well, and one of the more interesting is former Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt.
According to ESPN’s Marc Stein, the Lakers plan to interview the former Cavs coach:
Sources say the Lakers also plan to interview former Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt and have strong interest in UConn coach Kevin Ollie.
Blatt is an interesting candidate, despite his perceived shortcomings in Cleveland, he did compile an 83-40 record and led the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals despite injury issues to stars Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving.
Like Messina, Blatt had a ton of success coaching overseas before coming to the NBA. He was originally chosen by the Cavaliers to help bring their young team together, but the return of LeBron James completely changed those plans.
At this time, it seems as if Blatt is still behind Walton and Messina on the Lakers coaching list and, as Stein pointed out, the team also has interest in UConn’s Kevin Ollie though Ollie has said it would take something special to get him to leave his alma mater.
It could still be some time before the Lakers ultimately announce their decision so plenty of other names could be mentioned as the Laker explore who will take over the team in the post-Kobe Bryant era.