Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 9:56 am  |  29 responses

Kareem Lobbying for Lakers Head Coach

Adbul-Jabbar’s inexperience has kept him out of the post-Phil head coaching conversation, but there’s no question Kareem’s sizable Twitter army already has his back. Via @KAJ33:

• “My experience in coaching has not allowed me 2 be a front runner but if someone would have the faith in me I am sure I could deliver.”

• “I have not been given an opportunity as as a head coach so maybe a groundswell of support from my fans could open a door for me!”

• “I would do a good job as a head coach if given the chance. I’m absolutely sure of that.”

• “If people want to find out what I am sitting on in terms of basketball knowledge maybe I’ll get a shot at a head coaching position.”

  • Add a Comment
  • Share
  • RSS

Tags: , ,

  • http://dsjklf.com Jukai

    He may not be the best coach, has there ever been a coach TALLER?

  • http://www.mynameinblue.blogspot.com Hisham

    He should hire Keith Closs as his assistant

  • http://www.mynameinblue.blogspot.com Hisham

    The twin giraffes

  • http://slamonline.com/ niQ

    Has he ever been an assistant coach?

  • ant

    kareem has fans?dude is an asshole.

  • gatorhater

    If he really wanted to be a coach he would be a real assistant, not just a big man coach or trying to get head coaching experience in the NBADL. There is nooo way the Lakers would put the team in the hands I mean dude got turned down by Columbia University.

  • http://www.shoenut.blogspot.com ShoeNut

    I would love for Kareem to be the next Lakers head coach. Just from what I have seen with his work on Bynum, he can motivate players and coach them to reach their potential. I hope Kareem can get a chance to coach the Lakers after Phil.

  • http://www.twitter.com/Th3_R3al_Chris Young Chris MP3

    Bynum has reached ihs potential? I hope this is me not catching sarcasm…

  • http://www.shoenut.blogspot.com ShoeNut

    Young C – I’m not saying Bynum is an all star, but he has progressively gotten better over the years by working with Kareem. Do you disagree?

  • Yesse

    Well no disrespect, Kareem is one of the greatest, but Phil Jackson is possibly the greatest coach in Nba history so as long as he is coaching LA Kareem is far away.Kareem did a nice job with Bynum until he got injured and became almost the same as before.

  • Kadavour

    Jordan in his prime, Shaq in his prime, Kobe in his prime. Del Harris could put together multiple rings with that kind of talent. Phil was a$$-out EXPOSED by Larry Brown in 04, spare me this greatest coach B.S.

  • http://slamonline.com Brad Long

    Ummm, How many rings did Shaq, Jordan, or Kobe win without Phil? 1? Thought so.

  • w

    “Del Harris could put together multiple rings with that kind of talent.”

    Del had shaq n kobe, but not the rings… Just saying…

  • http://slamonline.com J Dizzle

    Yesse, I think Kareem is just saying this now because Rambis just left for MIN. Rambis was probably the front runner for head coach once Jackson leaves. I don’t know if the Lakers would seriously consider Kareem at all, but his timing is right if he wants to try to take over.

  • yuan

    i would rather consider byron scott……

  • http://www.triplejunearthed.com/dacre Dacre

    byron scott….? I’d just let Kobe coach if it came to that.

  • la huey

    kareem could get bruce lee to make another game of death before the lakers would have him succeed phil

  • http://slamonline.com Brad Long

    I love Kareem, but I honestly think Jerry Buss has his eye on Brian Shaw. Seriously.

  • chintao

    Kareem doesn’t play politics with upper management. That’s why he won’t get the gig. It’s a shame, because he’d probably do a pretty good job. Also, Fphil sux. He merely ate off of Del Harris’s plate, and that was right after he got done eating off of Doug Collins’s. If it wasn’t so disturbing it would be funny to see how Fphil creeps in there just as all the pieces of a championship team are finally being put in place. Fphil can eat a bag of baby dix.

  • shonuf

    ^ You do know that Jackson was an assistant coach for the Bulls before becoming head coach right? Maybe he was the final piece in your analogy.

    BTW Rambis replaced Harris in ’99, not Jackson.

  • http://straight-off-the-dome.blogspot.com Enigmatic

    True, we’ve never really seen what Phil Jackson’s able to do without at least one future hall of famer on his roster. I still like Mike Kryzyzewyzyzewski to coach them, if they can ever convince him to leave Duke.

  • Sturm Drang

    Lol, that’s a joke. No coach wins multiple NBA championships without a hall of famer on his roster! That’s silly. Name one coach that managed to do so. A single shot championship doesn’t count – we’re talking consistent high performance here.

    On the other hand, there have been many teams with hall of fame players that were never able to get over the hump.

    Get over it people, Phil IS a great coach. A large part of being an NBA coach is psychological and getting the most out of his players. Xs and Os matter much less in the NBA, there are plenty of excellent assistant coaches with playbooks pulling stuff from other people’s plays over DECADES.

    And yeesh, Larry Brown exposing Phil??? That championship happened because of a number of reasons:

    1) The Lakers medical staff COMPLETELY failed Karl Malone. It was an epic failure in every way – Karl was one of the ultimate iron men of the NBA and almost never injured, but the lakers staff screwed him up badly.

    2) Ben Wallace was at his very brief peak that year. He was strong enough and had an explosive enough jump to bother bigger man, and was quick enough to defend the pick and roll and even moved his feet well enough to play passable defense on guards. After that one year peak, Ben’s decline was really fast.

    3) That Pistons team had one of the best starting 5 lineups EVER. Larry Brown has failed to get the championship MANY times with other teams. You can’t say he schooled Phil when his team just plain better at that time.

    Did Del Harris get championships with essentially the same players as Phil? No. Neither did Doug Collins. So get over it.

    The only active coach that is close to as good as Phil is Greg Popovich, and that’s taking into account that Greg is also an awesome general manager, whereas Phil is a ‘pure’ coach.

    And Red Auerbach, come on. He had SO MANY hall of fame players on his teams that it’s a joke. He also had absolute control over his staff, and did not have to nurse prima donna egos into coexisting the way modern NBA coaches do.

    If Red was still coaching today, the way he used to coach before, he would put in one or two excellent seasons and then his team would start finding him overbearing and irritating and tune him out.

    Phil == best NBA coach all time. You don’t win championships without great players, so stop bringing up the ‘ready made teams’ crap. That’s just not so. He had to develop Horace Grant, he had to develop Scottie Pippen, he got role player shooters that were otherwise useless to be major contributors, he got players that hated each others’ guts to cooperate, and on this Lakers team, he also developed a lot of their good young players.

  • zabba

    Magic coach, Kareem assistant.

  • Sturm Drang

    And finally… Phil Jackson has never had a losing season as a coach in the NBA. EVER. Not even the year they lost Michael Jordan to baseball.

    And that 44-0 record of his for playoff series victories when winning the first game is unreal. That’s a streak that is about as unbreakable as Wilt’s 100 pt game. That’s not 44 games, that’s 44 SERIES.

  • Sturm Drang

    As for Kareem… He’s got time. He should stick around as an assistant coach for a while – eventually, he’ll get a chance to be a head coach. I mean, he’d certainly be better than Isiah Thomas was, anyway.

  • Kevin

    Well done, Sturm Drang. Good to see some common sense regarding Phil. He had a 55 win season with that Jordan less Bulls team, and took LA to the playoffs with a team that Rudy T had missed the playoffs with the year before. It amazes me that people hate on Phil so much. I admit he is arrogant sometimes, but still.

  • http://www.blogs.myspace.com/originadro Witness

    @ Kevin: And to add to your point… Phil managed to take the same Laker team to the playoffs the following year that Rudy T failed to do but we could all argue that Rudy’s Lakers team was better since he had Caron Butler and not Kwame Brown.

  • http://www.blogs.myspace.com/originadro Witness

    But then again Odom and Kobe had missed a chunk of games due to injuries when Rudy was coaching them.

  • chintao

    @ shonuf ==> Hmmm, assistant coach? It would be rare for an assistant coach to be considered the final piece of any puzzle. Instead, I would be interested to know if Fphil might have used his insider status to help Collins out the door a little faster.

Advertisement
Counterkicks