Hahahaha
So it’s official. PHILLIP is coming back to coach the Lakers. That’s freakin’ hilarious. I guess Kobe can’t coach, general manage and play all at the same time! What a freakin’ circus the Lakers have become!
It’ll be really interesting to see how this saga plays out. I really don’t think that Phillip and Kobe are going to be able to co-exist in any way. Not when Kobe ran him and Shaq out of town to begin with. Not when Phillip goes to write this tell-all book and mentions that he could never reach Kobe, and that Kobe is pretty much un-coachable. Not when Kobe also ran Rudy Tomjanovich out of town! I mean FREAKIN’ Tomjanovich! It’s not like this was some scrub JV coach would return to obscurity – this was Rudy Tomjanovich, and he just up & quit!
Now I’m not saying that the blame is all on Kobe – but the blame is all on Kobe… It might have been Jerry Bus that signed the executive order, but they did it all in the name to try to draw Kobe back to the Lakers for a long-term deal. Vicariously through his actions he turned it into a "Shaq or me" deal and forced the Laker’s hand. When Phillip was on the rocks last year, Kobe had the opportunity to offer support for the Zen-master, but through Kobe’s posturing (and the troubles between these two being publicized) Bus had no choice but to put Phillip on the horse and ride him out of town.
So here we are a year later – the Lakers go from being the Western Conference Champs to becoming a lottery team within the year! Kobe got his wish – the Lakers were his and on his shoulders alone, but in the end of the day that didn’t make any difference. The rest of the players hated playing with him, Kobe became a ball-hog and now has a crappy reputation throughout the NBA.
Flash-forward a few weeks after their season ended – what’s really changed now that Phillip is coming back? Nothing! He’s walking into a situation that is now worse than from when he left it (a big part of it his fault – due to his book). The Lakers will be implementing the triangle offense that Kobe hates, and best of all NO SHAQ!! And to make things even worse is that there are really not big free agents this off-season which could or would go play with the Lakers. Ming won’t touch LA, Stoudemire is going to get locked up by Phoenix, and Peja will be out of LA’s price range. So the Lakers are still minus one big man and with it a chance to be truly competitive.
Good luck Phillip – but for now I still say – Hahahahahaha….