Byron Scott has most of the credentials LeBron James was looking for. At least in the short term, it is a good hire.
View full sizeIn new Cavaliers coach Byron Scott, LeBron James is getting somebody who played in the league and has prior experience as an NBA head coach.CLEVELAND, Ohio - Byron Scott won three championship rings as the shooting guard whom Magic Johnson would pull out of a hat when he wasn't feeding James Worthy or scoring himself. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was still around to toss in a skyhook too. Showtime, they called the Los Angeles Lakers then.
LeBron James wants a coach who played in the league?
The Cavaliers are giving him one who started on one of the great teams of all-time. It has been a generation since Showtime went dark, but Scott had more credibility as a player than any Cavs coach except Lenny Wilkens, and more visibility, since it was practically "Hollywood and the Stars" in hardwood, than any of them.
James wanted a head coach with previous NBA experience?
He got that too. Scott reached two NBA Finals as a coach with the New Jersey Nets, who had not been such a conspicuous success since the franchise was located on Long Island and the young Dr. J was dunking a ball that belonged on a seal's nose.
No coach who is available comes without flaws, though.
Scott and Jason Kidd, one of the great point guards of the last 20 years, did not get along, despite the two Finals runs, in New Jersey. Exit Scott, who had to know that if the Showtime Lakers could force out Pat Riley, Kidd could nudge him aside.
Part of the reason for the dissatisfaction might have been the passivity with which Scott watched a 19-0 Spurs' run that finished off his second Finals team.
Another reason might have been Scott's strong personality, which certainly will be a change from Mike Brown's general air of subservience.
But Scott had success in New Orleans too, managing to cope with two seasons of playing in Oklahoma City in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Then the Hornets won 56 games and a playoff series in 2007-08 (against the Dallas Mavericks and none other than Kidd) when another great point guard, Chris Paul, came their way in the draft.
Paul reportedly loved playing for him; Kidd, not so much.
Paul and James are close, but he also admires Kidd and once lobbied the Cavs to acquire him. The feedback James, now a free agent, gets on the hiring might be full of static, but Paul's experience is more recent and his friendship with James is warmer.
Although coaches such as the late Chuck Daly and the Spurs' Gregg Popovich have won championships without ever playing in the league, this is mainly an ex-players club among coaches.
The failure of so many other college coaches to make the transition to the NBA would have been a concern with Michigan State's Tom Izzo, the Cavs' first choice, although he would have been the best qualified ever to attempt the jump.
So Scott allays those worries.
Scott is supposed to be a good defensive coach with some offensive deficiencies, which sounds a lot like the fired Brown.
Had the Cavs hired Lakers assistant Brian Shaw, who seemed to be the front runner, but now looks like a pawn to hurry Scott along, there would have been the whole issue of implementing the Lakers' intricate triangle offense. Shaw is one of the gurus of the scheme.
Both Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan have won many rings using it. Whatever triangle shape from a middle school geometry textbook the playbook diagram assumed under Shaw, though, there is a good chance James would have been its hypotenuse -- its longest leg, its side that it is first among equals. That is the way things work in crunch time in the NBA. At least in the short term, Scott has done well with big stars.
Reading the tea leaves, it seems likely neither Scott nor Shaw would want the job here without some inkling James is likely to stay.
As far as impressing James goes, other than persuading Phil Jackson to pull a Shaq and renounce warm climates and palm trees for lake effect and galoshes, it seems indisputable that the Cavs have done their best with Scott.
To reach Bill Livingston:
blivingston@plaind.com, 216-999-4672