Breaking Down Lakers’ Top Coaching Candidates with Ty Lue out of the Running

“Cleveland Cavaliers West” may be on hold, as news broke Wednesday evening that negotiations between former Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue and the Los Angeles Lakers had broken down.

“Negotiations between the Los Angeles Lakers and Ty Lue have reached an impasse without a deal to make him the franchise’s next head coach,” ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted.

ESPN’s Dave McMenamin explained further:

The dust hadn’t even settled on those reports when names started to emerge as new potential candidates for the Lakers’ head coaching vacancy.

The Athletic’s Shams Charania tweeted Lionel Hollins, Mike Woodson and Frank Vogel are now in the fray. Other names that surfaced in recent weeks include Jason Kidd, Mark Jackson and Juwan Howard.

So, how would each one fit at the helm of a team with LeBron James and the expectations that come from being the mythical Lakers? Let’s break them down.

Mike Woodson

Legendary goatee aside, Woodson’s career coaching record is among the least inspiring of this crop.

He does have two 50-win seasons on his resume—the 2009-10 Atlanta Hawks and the 2012-13 New York Knicks—but his overall record is 315-365. Among the 83 coaches with at least 500 games under their belts, Woodson’s .463 winning percentage ranks 63rd.

To Woodson’s credit, he was ahead of his time when he led that 2012-13 Knicks squad. Their league-leading 35.4 three-point attempt rate would’ve ranked in the top half of this season’s triple-happy NBA.

Unfortunately, whatever progress he was onto with that approach was stymied by the addition of Phil Jackson and his insistence on the triangle offense following that season.

The Knicks fired him after a 37-45 campaign in 2013-14, and he spent the next four seasons as a defensive-minded assistant for Doc Rivers and the Los Angeles Clippers.

After spending 2018-19 out of coaching, is Woodson ready to jump into the most pressure-packed job in basketball?

While he has his fair share of experience with ball-dominant wing/forwards—Carmelo Anthony in New York and Joe Johnson in Atlanta—few player-coach experiences can prepare someone for LeBron.

Erik Spoelstra might be the lone exception to the following rule: LeBron gets the credit for success, and the coach and teammates get the credit for failures.

Woodson’s (and everyone else’s) candidacy would be about more than how he’d handle the constant scrutiny that comes from coaching LeBron. But it’s certainly a factor for everyone.

Unfortunately, one of the lasting memories of Woodson’s tenure with the Knicks was Anthony caught on camera decrying the length of a timeout.

Lionel Hollins

Another sub-.500 head coach, Hollins at least has the feather in his cap of being one of the engineers of the Memphis Grizzlies‘ Grit-n-Grind era.

Over his final four-and-a-half seasons as Memphis’ head coach, Hollins went 196-155 (.558). Over his last three seasons there, the Grizzlies played at a 51-win pace. And he capped his run there with a 56-win campaign in 2012-13.

In an April interview with The Undefeated’s Kelley D. Evans, Hollins expressed his interest in getting back into coaching.

I miss the action of teaching. I miss practice. I miss seeing guys get it and run forward with it. To me, that’s the big thing about coaching that I like. I like going to practice. I like teaching. I do miss it and I hope to get back. Maybe somebody will give me an opportunity to coach again.

Hollins’ wish may come sooner than he imagined. 

A coach who’s big on practice and teaching might be a good fit for a team as young as the Lakers. Outside of LeBron, L.A.’s core of Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart has plenty to learn.

But the shift from Luke Walton’s “player’s coach” style to Hollins’ hard-nosed approach that made him successful with the Grizzlies could be jarring.

Frank Vogel

Once upon a time, former Indiana Pacers head coach Frank Vogel was a rising star in his profession.

He was 38 for his first full season coaching the Pacers. And in his next two, he led the Pacers to 105 wins and back-to-back trips to the Eastern Conference Finals.

You likely remember that team. And this picture, too:

Things were all downhill from there, but that squad was solid. Anchored by Roy Hibbert, it led the NBA in defensive rating in both 2012-13 and 2013-14.

The Lakers don’t have their own version of Hibbert (yet), but Ball has the potential to be one of the best point-of-attack defenders in the league. Vogel can construct a strong defense with him, LeBron and Ingram as the anchors. 

And even now, Vogel is relatively young by NBA coaching standards. On the right side of 50, there’s a chance for some growth along with the team’s non-LeBron core.

Jason Kidd

Mike Budenholzer and the 2018-19 Milwaukee Bucks have not done Kidd’s future coaching prospects many favors.

After Kidd went 139-152 (.478) with Milwaukee, Budenholzer instantly elevated Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks to contender status in their first year post-Kidd.

They led the league this season in wins, simple rating system (which combines point differential and strength of schedule) and defensive rating.

Still, Kidd has fans within the Lakers’ front office, per Wojnarowski:

If L.A. was intent on having Kidd as part of Lue’s staff, it would make sense for him to be in the mix for the main job now that Lue’s out.

“Kidd will be among the serious candidates for the Lakers coaching job if Luke Walton is dismissed,” Wojnarowski tweeted in March.

Stylistically, Kidd didn’t bring a lot to the Bucks that stood out in a positive way. The team’s scrambling defensive scheme was decent when it had the element of surprise, but it ultimately surrendered far too many threes.

And Milwaukee wasn’t imaginative offensively under Kidd, either. There is some value to the “just give LeBron the ball and surround him with shooters” approach, but the Lakers need at least some creativity to work the fit with Ball and James, both of whom need to control the ball to maximize their games.

Mark Jackson

Much like Kidd, Jackson’s coaching resume took a bit of a hit from the accomplishments of the guy who followed him.

Jackson deserves credit for leading the Warriors to back-to-back seasons of 47 and 51 wins, but Steve Kerr immediately won 67 games and an NBA title in Golden State’s first year post-Jackson by abandoning the old-school approach and endowing talents like Stephen Curry and Draymond Green with more freedom.

Maybe a grind-it-out style makes more sense with LeBron than it did with Curry, though. Jackson instilled a lot of the defensive identity and culture that set up this Warriors dynasty. And if he can bring that to the Lakers, perhaps LeBron can take care of the other end of the floor.

Juwan Howard

This one’s interesting. Far too often, NBA coaching searches are loaded with retreads—guys who’ve had plenty of chances and little success.

And while there are obvious drawbacks to going with a first-time coach, some points may be working in Howard’s favor.

Bleacher Report’s Eric Pincus reported on Howard’s candidacy back in April:

…one new name surfaced with favorable odds: Miami Heat assistant and Pelinka’s former University of Michigan teammate Juwan Howard. 

Howard is one of many assistants around the league deserving of a promotion, but is he ready for everything that comes with coaching James and the Lakers? The Lakers job may eat an inexperienced coach alive, but he might get that chance should James and Pelinka both believe he’s ready for the challenge.

James may not mind a first-year coach if it’s one he knows and trusts. He won two championships with James in Miami and made the move to the bench in James’ final year with the Heat.

Those four seasons with the Heat were the most successful stretch of LeBron’s career. And Howard has been with that organization long enough that its legendary culture may now be ingrained in him.

Perhaps he and LeBron can transform what has become one of the league’s more dysfunctional teams and recapture some of that Miami magic together.