Mike Brown - Thrown Under The Buss

Last summer, Jerry Buss was faced with an important decision.

Phil Jackson had decided to take another coaching sabbatical, and the Lakers' owner would have to replace the most accomplished and revered coach in modern professional sports.

It was pivotal; not only in the immensity of the matter, but in its urgency too; LA's favorite sons had just been swept out of the Playoffs, suddenly weren't even the best team in their own city anymore, and were eyeing the twilight of Kobe Bryant's career.

So, of course, when  respected coaching veterans (Rick Adelman) and straight up legends (Jerry Sloan) were out of work, and could've been offered the World by basketball's most valuable entity, Buss instead hastily hired Mike Brown without so much as a phone call to his franchise player.

Brown's resume was somewhat sparse: he had harvested a reputation as a defensive guru, woefully inept offensive coordinator, and probable lost sibling of a certain McDonalds mascot through five seasons in Cleveland. He won a Coach of the Year award (mostly because of Lebron James) and made a Finals appearance (mostly because of a pitifully incompetent Eastern Playoff bracket, and again Lebron James) despite never earning the type of praise the best in the business tend to garner. Players weren't crazy about him. He didn't instill discipline, respect or fear. He wasn't great at in-game adjustments. He (with one unavoidable exception) didn't consistently get the best out of his young talent. He simply sort of existed, riding the wave of accolades that would come to any half-decent new coach with no expectations and the most ideal basketball specimen ever starting at small forward.

Things were certainly different this time around: Brown's "credentials" steadily built his profile to the pinnacle of expectation-ridden coaching gigs. Now under the bright lights of Los Angeles, trying to restore a proud franchise and harness the most mercurial and daunting coaching task in the NBA, we'd get to see what he was really made of. 

The first season was a relative disaster from a new coach's perspective. Any attempt Brown made to saddle Bryant into a team concept fell on deaf ears, as Kobe went on tear that laid to rest any question of how his knees were holding up and gave sabermetric stat geeks massive aneurysms. Coach Kobe was running the show as Brown regularly feuded with Andrew Bynum, failed to keep Pau Gasol engaged without the touches he craved, and the Lakers flamed out unceremoniously in the second round.

The year-long murmurings for Brown's head turned to open conversation, but Buss wasn't ready to drop the axe. He (well, more specifically Mitch Kupchak) had other plans. Kupchak's legendary offseason coups need no re-hashing (okay, yes they do, he pried a legendary, loyalist point guard away from a bitter Lakers' rival for nothing and then acquired the game's best big man without surrendering the player every team in the deal wanted. Incredibly played.) but they upped the ante yet again for Brown, when he was already struggling with the stakes.

As the Lakers bombed out the gate this season, the open conversation got very loud and heated. Press, fans, and people who just wanted to see an incredible Finals this year (like me) were screaming for Brown's demise. Things took a sharp turn this week: one second Brown was allegedly safe, and then as quickly as a cold look from Kobe can turn into a Tumblr phenomenon, Grimace was gone.

Instead of dwell on why the hell Brown was hired in the first place, or lament last season's waste of Kobe's mileage, the Lakers need to realize what 2012's failure has delivered them: a legendary assembly of talent that should contending for a title, not confounding the masses. 

The urgency to find a new coach and right this sinking ship is pressing, but with the importance magnified, this decision can't be as blind as their last coaching hire. Moreover, this hire needs to be fitting of what this team could become: legendary. This team needs a coach who will instantly command the respect of every one of its stars. This team needs a coach who won't panic under the pressure of the LA media and the dire situation his team finds themselves in. This team needs a coach who gets Kobe Bryant, and really, there's only one person on the face of the Earth who does. This team needs the man who Mike Brown tried desperately to replace but could never hope to: Phil Jackson.

Throw money at him. Throw a custom-designed Zen multiplex at him. Do whatever needs to be done to get this man out of retirement (I mean, hell, he's essentially Jerry Buss' son-in-law, how difficult can it be?) because it would be the easiest remedy to a situation that's turning a $100 million+ payroll - and the entire sports World - on its head. 

Hopefully Mike Brown can find work at a McDonalds Playland somewhere (more likely teaching one of the many needy teams in the NBA a proper defensive scheme), but this was a task far too great for him. This Lakers team is unparalleled, not only in its assembly of talent, but the precariousness of it coming together properly. 

Few would be up to it, and only one really makes sense. 

...And then there was One

It's all over. The collective dust from months of anticipation and endless epic basketball battles has settled, leaving the team any fan with a shred of common sense assumed would be the last one standing. The Lakers shut the door on a Magic squad that played hard (losing a couple close games that could've drastically altered the series) but ultimately didn't have the consistency,experience or skill to keep up with LA. Orlando didn't have the constant open looks and minimal D12 opposition the Cavs offered up, looking out of synch and tentative throughout large stretches. You could tell that their entire rotation was popping their Finals cherry.

Orlando now heads into a season of relative uncertainty, with Hedo Turkoglu reportedly opting out of his final year and the bench-unfriendly Rafer Alston now the second horse in the point guard race. Regardless of what goes down over the next few months, they deserve serious recognition for finally making us take their early-season title ambitions seriously. The Magic beat the league's best teams all year, were tested by injury and responded with a resilient playoff run that took the further than anyone would've guessed. A few keys plays unravel slightly differently, Dwight shoots from the stripe like he did against Cleveland, and this might've gone seven games. A Finals loss will always be indescribably painful but they should hold their heads high.

The Lakers' victory was an emphatic re-assertion of one of pro sports' most storied franchises. Legends grew Sunday night; not only did LA win its second-all-time 15th title, the Zen Master passed Red Auerbach in the only playoff supremacy tally he had yet to; the one that counted the most. It cements a very convincing argument that this calm, passive realist might be the best coach the game's ever seen. That "mamba" guy also had an significant milestone, copping his 4th ring, and first outside the imposing shadow of Shaquille O'Neal, making it his most impressive and important yet.

It was a defining moment for Kobe, even after a three-peat and an MVP, this might be his finest moment. Their nerves likely still shook from the dud against Boston a year ago, the Lakers were on a mission for redemption, not unlike the one Kobe recently embarked on with Team USA. And much like his triumph in Beijing, Bryant was a deadly player and true leader. He was a man far removed from the alleged pretentious diva whose ego helped destroy arguably the deadliest duo the League's ever seen. After years of blindly grasping at true greatness through personal dominance (sick as it was), Bryant forced his team to surround him with title-worthy talent, and delivered on the quest the Lakers' decision to keep him in '04 essentially signed him up for.

It's hard to feel anything but happy for Kobe. Dude spent years killing everyone in his path, yearning for a return to the glory days when he lamped, albeit unharmoniously, atop the NBA. He's weathered a frivilous rape charge and consequent character assassination (no, I don't laugh at those Family Guy sequences), to go along with more open hatred than any player this side of Reggie Miller. His dedication and work ethic to the game he was so blessed for were impeccable, and when he finally figured out that whole "no I in team" mantra, it was a rap. He now leads a relatively young team into potentially his second dynasty.

LA's one of two teams in the NBA entering this offseason without serious question marks and moves to make, having recently ousted the other in dismissive fashion. They look pretty fucking untouchable. Kobe, having truly carved his spot among the League's all-time greats, is looking every bit more and more like its All-Time Great, the one he's been incessantly judged against his whole career.