Lakers Coach Byron Scott glad to get this show on the road
Lakers Coach Byron Scott chats with rookie guard D’Angelo Russell (1) as Kobe Bryant (24) listens during the first half of their game Sunday.
The five teams the Lakers will face on their upcoming trip don’t exactly strike fear into anyone based on their records.
But the Lakers are 0-4 and they aren’t exactly making opponents stay awake at night.
The Lakers start the trip Friday night against the 0-5 Brooklyn Nets.
Then it’s on to play the New York Knicks (currently 2-3) Sunday, at Miami (2-2) on Tuesday, and Orlando (1-4) Thursday before the Lakers end their trip at Dallas (2-2) Nov. 13.
“It’s a tough task any time you play on the road in the NBA,” Lakers Coach Byron Scott said after practice Wednesday. “I don’t care how much experience you’ve got, and obviously we don’t have a whole lot of it.
“It might be the best thing for us to get on the road at this particular time just to kind of bond as a team. It’s almost that ‘us against the world’ type thing because now when you go into other arenas, you don’t have a whole lot of fans.”
The Lakers were a horrible team on the road last season, posting a 9-32 record that led to a franchise-worst 21-61 mark.
They have played one road game this season, and it wasn’t a pretty sight, losing at Sacramento by 18 points.
“We knew it was going to be a tough season, but we still feel that we’ve got a better team than we did last year,” Scott said. “We’re much younger, so you’ve got to take the good with the bad. Our younger guys are eager to learn. They’re hard workers. They’re very humble and they’re going to just keep working. So we’re going to get better.”
Despite the slow start, Scott said his goal is to “develop the young core” of players while also trying to win games.
Second-year forward Julius Randle, 20, rookie guard D’Angelo Russell, 19, and second-year guard Jordan Clarkson, 23, are considered the future for the Lakers, and Scott’s plan is to rely heavily on that trio.
Clarkson is averaging 31.3 minutes a game, tops on the team, as is his 18.3 points a game.
Randle is tied for third in minutes played (28.0), fourth in scoring (14) and first in rebounding (8.3).
Russell, the No. 2 overall draft pick, has struggled, averaging 24.3 minutes and 8.5 points, while shooting 34.1% from the field and 25% from three-point range.
“I’m not always thinking about necessarily developing. I’m always thinking about trying to win,” Scott said. “The developing part, it comes secondary to that.”
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