Mike Brown is a brilliant defensive coach and a smart basketball man, but since becoming a head coach in 2005 his offenses have almost always made eyes bleed. Usually, his teams are still effective on that end -- I'd like to see an ineffective offense starring LeBron James or Kobe Bryant -- but ... well, wait. The L.A. Lakers are just No. 15 in offensive efficiency this year, despite having perhaps the league's best frontcourt scoring duo, an MVP-race guard and plenty of interplayer familiarity. Further, the Lakers just lost back-to-back games to the Pistons and (cough) Wizards (!).
Lakers In Crisis Under Mike Brown, Plot Triangle Insurrection
Cue the Sturm und Drang.
ESPN The Magazine's Chris Broussard recently reported that Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher called a players-only meeting after a win against Portland on Feb. 21 to address concerns about Brown's style, as well as persistent trade rumors involving Pau Gasol. [...]
Sources told ESPNLosAngeles.com that multiple players have continued to meet privately since the initial team meeting to discuss running elements of the Triangle offense again.
"The players want to unify," one source with knowledge of the situation said. "They know how to win, and they want to fix this. I don't know if they can, though."
For a decade, Phil Jackson had to cajole his star player to play within the Triangle, to make the right plays and stop breaking off sets for fall-away jumpers. And now that Kobe is absolutely free to take as many fall-away jumpers as he pleases, he and his teammates to plotting a Triangle insurrection. Just amazing.
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