The Los Angeles Lakers have hired Golden State assistant Luke Walton to be the franchise's next head coach, the team announced on Friday. It will be the 36-year-old Walton's first head coaching position after 11 NBA seasons, including the first nine with the Lakers, where he won two titles in 2009 and 2010. Walton's job will begin at the end of the Warriors' season.
Luke Walton is hired as the Lakers head coach
Walton will be the 22nd head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers after a successful two years with the Warriors.
Walton received a five-year, $25 million deal, according to Mike Bresnahan of the LA Times.
“We’re excited to bring Luke back to Los Angeles, where we feel he’s going to start an outstanding coaching career,” Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said. “He’s one of the brightest young coaching minds in the game and we feel fortunate that he’ll be leading the on-court future of our team.”
After retiring in 2013, Walton first joined the Warriors organization as a player development coach for their D-League team before being hired as an assistant coach prior to the 2014-15 season. That season, Golden State ran through the league for a dominant 67-win season and a 2015 NBA championship.
This year, Walton was the interim head coach for the Warriors when Steve Kerr took a leave of absence from the team with complications from a back surgery. Kerr eventually returned in late January, but Walton coached the Warriors to a league-record 24 straight wins to open a season and also won Coach of the Month for November, despite the wins earned officially going on Kerr’s ledger, not his.
The Lakers’ position opened after Byron Scott was fired earlier this week. Los Angeles won just 17 games last season in a season marked by off-the-court drama, both good (Kobe Bryant’s retirement tour) and bad (D’Angelo Russell’s leaked video scandal). However, Walton will take over a team with several good, young players. Russell leads the way, along with Julius Randle and restricted free agent Jordan Clarkson. The Lakers will likely also add another top-three player from this year’s 2016 NBA Draft.
Los Angeles reportedly wanted a coach who could help draw big name free agents this summer, and it’s unclear if Walton is that name. However, his 39-4 record with the Warriors as an interim certainly draws notice. Even if the Lakers don’t draw any big names this summer, they’ll have a much better chance of doing that in 2017, with the cap projecting to jump drastically for a second-straight year and Walton having a season to prove himself as a viable head coaching candidate.
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