Luke Walton

#1
I have a question. Who is the best cook around here? I got some crow I need cooked and I hear if you dont cook it right it's real tough and gamey.

Real talk tho, hats off to him. Without Bagley and Fox he has changed the whole identity of this team on the fly.

I have a lot of confidence that when they return the ship will sail even faster with him at the helm, and its sailing pretty damn well at the moment.

I will admit I was a skeptic after game 5 and all the Laker fans saying how horrible he was as a coach had me listening. Well shame on me. Luke. I'm not your father. I'm your fan. Hats off to Coach Walton. Helluva job he has done so far.
 
#2
I have a question. Who is the best cook around here? I got some crow I need cooked and I hear if you dont cook it right it's real tough and gamey.

Real talk tho, hats off to him. Without Bagley and Fox he has changed the whole identity of this team on the fly.

I have a lot of confidence that when they return the ship will sail even faster with him at the helm, and its sailing pretty damn well at the moment.

I will admit I was a skeptic after game 5 and all the Laker fans saying how horrible he was as a coach had me listening. Well shame on me. Luke. I'm not your father. Ik your fan. Hats off to Coach Walton. Helluva job he has done so far.
Talk to Baja, he could pass for a chef.
 

SacTownKid

Hall of Famer
#5
I have been guilty of cruising laker fans posts when they were having a rough go and all I ever heard was his rotations and scheme were terrible.


Seems to me they just had a terrible fitting team.
It usually is that way and honestly most of the Kings coaches suffered through the same problem. It must be said, offensively a lot of this stuff is Igors from what I can tell and I can't remember who said it but someone pointed that out on the board not long ago. In LA Luke ran a lot of the same plays Dave Joerger did through the elbow in horn sets. We aren't seeing too much of that thankfully. Vlade has put together a nice all around coaching depth chart with Walton as the cool and collected centerpiece.
 

kingsboi

Hall of Famer
#7
It usually is that way and honestly most of the Kings coaches suffered through the same problem. It must be said, offensively a lot of this stuff is Igors from what I can tell and I can't remember who said it but someone pointed that out on the board not long ago. In LA Luke ran a lot of the same plays Dave Joerger did through the elbow in horn sets. We aren't seeing too much of that thankfully. Vlade has put together a nice all around coaching depth chart with Walton as the cool and collected centerpiece.
I think we now see why Bogdanovic and Bjelica are having productive numbers thus far
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
#8
It usually is that way and honestly most of the Kings coaches suffered through the same problem. It must be said, offensively a lot of this stuff is Igors from what I can tell and I can't remember who said it but someone pointed that out on the board not long ago. In LA Luke ran a lot of the same plays Dave Joerger did through the elbow in horn sets. We aren't seeing too much of that thankfully. Vlade has put together a nice all around coaching depth chart with Walton as the cool and collected centerpiece.
Apparently we're seeing how Igor would have been a good coach if only the Suns had had a single PG.
 
#9
I have been one of the more supportive posters for Luke on this website. Living here in So Cal, I have watched many Lakers games before the Lakers let him go.

As I have said before, his Laker teams played hard for him every game. He had that team on the right path, before the LeBron James signing torpedoed him in LA. The talking heads here in LA was sad to see him go and felt he got a raw deal because of LeBron.

Just as Steve Kerr said when we hired him, Luke is one of the brightest young minds in basketball and the Kings got a quality head coach. For once, we may be catching a rising head coach on the rise and he can grow with the team.

He is teaching the players the right way to play and he is preaching defense first. That is a sustainable path to being a solid playoff and potentially championship contending team. Also, he seems to have the ear and respect of all his players. :)
 
#12
I don't know what to make of the season's start but between some distractions off court, the fact that the Kings picked some of the assistants rather than let Luke run with his crew, and the India trip I am glad we didn't do anything rash. I was pretty firmly in the camp that we got an upgrade and I hope the current form continues when we get Bagley and Fox back and then we can really see what we have.
 
#15
I think he's done a solid job but his biggest test and what makes or breaks our season (injuries aside) is how he distributes time/incorporates Holmes/Bjelica/Bagley while not impacting the success of two former who are keys to us winning.
Agree. He still has tests ahead. It's a long season and there will likely be a couple of losing streaks ahead the team will have to weather.
 
#18
I think we were all guilty of prematurely jumping the gun. Going into this season, we actually have hope this team could be something good and a team with actual playoff expectations that weren't unfounded. Starting 0-5 this year was one of the bigger gut-punches to the collective fan base as we've had in 10+ years.

Hats off to the staff and recognizing the necessary changes to turn the season around. Would have been really easy to stick with Dedmon and his 13 mil contract in lieu of Holmes, but Luke found the right guy almost instantly and made the change.
 
#19
I was watching the Denver game against Phoenix today and the Kings seem to be similarly built.

No bonafide Alpha dawg scorer, but they play good team defense and offense. That team is well coached and play well as a team unit. They play hard and smart and they win as a team.

Denver is near the top of the West and they give me hope we can eventually do the same. I’m hoping the Kings take Denver’s blueprint and thrive like they have.
 
Last edited:
#23
The fact that we’re doing this without some big guns AND Buddy hield going through a shooting slump. I never would have predicted this
It happens all the time in sports. You have players that the team thinks the ball is supposed to go to so you look for them unnecessarily and often wind up marginalizing guys that would be solid contributors and running inefficient plays. The Browns are dealing with it right now with OBJ.
 
#24
I really, really hope, that this shoving the offense and defense in and learning HIS system prior to running allows this team to unleash it's fury later in the year. If we can creep to top 10 in pace with a top 15 ranked defense and these shooters, we can be scary good. I did not expect the defense to be this good.
 
#25
I was watching the Denver game against Phoenix today and the Kings seem to be similarly built.

No bonafide Alpha dawg scorer, but they play good team defense and offense. That team is well coached and play well as a team unit. They play hard and smart and they win as a team.

Denver is near the top of the West and they give me hope we can eventually do the same. I’m hoping the Kings take Denver’s blueprint and thrive like they have.

I don't want to jinx anything but one area where the Kings can be even better and possibly not at as much of a detriment when playoff time comes is defensively at the big spot. The Kings have their main talent loaded at a different position than C and shouldn't have as much of a gaping hole in pick and roll defense as the Nuggets do at center. Who knows what will translate but when Fox and Bagley come back the Kings have very few holes on paper on either end of the floor. Size on the wing, post play, 3 point shooting, pick and roll combos, guard defense, and so on.
 
#26
I too made a negative comment or two about Luke. In fairness, it was a distressing start.
And it was a different start. The Kings weren't really running some the same stuff as they are now and what they were was ineffective. The thing that was clear from Luke early on and that gave a glimmer of hope was his willingness to adapt. He's not stubborn, he's versatile and able to change. Dudes smart. I thought one thing the Kings would lose with Joerger gone was the ability to draw up a great play out of a timeout, but Luke and his staff have shown already they are creative as all heck.
 
#28
I don't want to jinx anything but one area where the Kings can be even better and possibly not at as much of a detriment when playoff time comes is defensively at the big spot. The Kings have their main talent loaded at a different position than C and shouldn't have as much of a gaping hole in pick and roll defense as the Nuggets do at center. Who knows what will translate but when Fox and Bagley come back the Kings have very few holes on paper on either end of the floor. Size on the wing, post play, 3 point shooting, pick and roll combos, guard defense, and so on.
Bagley + Holmes we have to at least kick the tires on.
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#29
I think we were all guilty of prematurely jumping the gun. Going into this season, we actually have hope this team could be something good and a team with actual playoff expectations that weren't unfounded. Starting 0-5 this year was one of the bigger gut-punches to the collective fan base as we've had in 10+ years.

Hats off to the staff and recognizing the necessary changes to turn the season around. Would have been really easy to stick with Dedmon and his 13 mil contract in lieu of Holmes, but Luke found the right guy almost instantly and made the change.
Not all of us. :p
 
#30
I’ll gladly eat crow. The beginning was dark. I rarely say anything at games and I boo’d him in the beginning of the UT game and then made a point to stand and cheer for Malone at the DEN game. Then we took the kids to Disney in ice and I was in the suite level lounge drinking some wine and watching the end of a college football game and out comes Luke from his suite...and he too ordered wine. So I figured any guy who also drinks wine at Disney on Ice can’t be all that bad. Oh and he has them playing good ball, good D, some good offense and he’s making good adjustments lol