Coming into the 2015-16 regular season, many people expected the Los Angeles Lakers to at least show signs of improvement after two straight seasons that saw their win total plummet all the way to just 21.
Instead, their downward spiral continued, winning just 17 games and recording the worst record in the franchise’s illustrious history for the third consecutive season. Although Byron Scott did not handle everything well in his first year as head coach, he was dealt a terrible hand with a roster deprived of talent, combined with a plethora of injuries. That earned him a pass among a large portion of the fan base.
Now, fans are anxiously waiting as the front office ponders whether to dismiss Scott as the team’s head coach, or to give him another year sans Kobe Bryant’s farewell.
The vast majority of the Lakers’ massive fan base wants the team to move in another direction, but some are getting to the point where they just want a decision to be made so that everyone can focus on what is next.
Well, at the very beginning of hour two of the Friday, April 22 podcast of Mychal Thompson and Mike Trudell, the latter — who is the Lakers’ sideline reporter for Time Warner Cable SportsNet — had an interesting comment that might suggest that a decision is on the horizon.
Right before Thompson — the father of Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson — was going to start the segment by talking about assistant coach Luke Walton, Trudell made sure that he was not going to talk about a certain piece of information.
“What I can tell you you’re not going to do is share the off-record information I just shared with you during the break,” Trudell said. Thompson then replied with, “You can bring it up in a sensitive kind of way if you want to.”
Both of them then started to talk about the possible worth of Walton’s seemingly eventual head coaching contract, along with potential destinations, before Trudell claimed that he did not have inside information on the matter. But he then proceeded to say, “I think that [Walton] recognizes there are some openings that either are open now or are going to open soon.”
Now, this could certainly prove to be nothing. Trudell could have shared something with Thompson off the air that has nothing to do with the subject or even the Lakers or Walton altogether. But keep in mind that Trudell works for the team and the network that is affiliated with them, so if he knows something, it is unlikely that he would be allowed to publicly leak that information.
Whether it proves to be something meaningful or not, it definitely appears that Trudell made absolutely sure that a particular bit of information did not go public. Again, this could be nothing, and this is pure speculation on my part, but it was an interesting little back-and-forth between the two. Only time will tell, but hopefully the Lakers make a decision soon so that the offseason can really begin.
For the full podcast of hour two of their radio show on ESPN, click here.
For the iTunes link, click here.
