Should the Lakers Fire Mike Brown? Well, They Just Did

The Lakers are off to a 1-4 start, their worst since the 1993-94 season.  In a city without a football team and where the defending World Champion Kings are sidelined by a lockout, basketball reigns supreme.  So with their worst start in almost two decades hanging over their heads going into a six-game homestand, will there be jobs on the line, namely the head coach's spot occupied by Mike Brown?

When the Lakers attempted to create a "super team" by signing Dwight Howard and Steve Nash, it was easy to pick them as the NBA Finals favorite.  But no one picked this kind of start.  The new system the players...

So right there is as far as I got writing this post, before the breaking news came out that head coach of the Lakers Mike Brown has been fired.  He only made it five regular season games into his second season with the team, writing a strange ending to the chapter following his stay in Cleveland where he won Coach of the Year in 2009.

Firing Brown was ultimately the wrong choice by the Lakers.  They have too many egos to control and too much to learn to start over with a new coach.  This essentially erases all they learned from him over the summer, but the one good thing that comes from this is that they weren't very good at applying what they learned, so hopefully a new coach can bring a quick fix.

From 3,000 miles away, even I could feel the pressure the media was putting on the purple and gold.  Kobe Bryant's "death stare," Steve Blake mouthing off to a fan and Howard's constant internal battle over whether he is defined as a center or a forward are all cases of how the team is already starting to wear themselves down. 

Howard has fired back at Shaquille O'Neal and then the NBA itself, declaring himself a true center and taking things very personally when someone says otherwise.  He first needs to work on lightening up, then he needs to work on adjusting to his new role.  His selfishness is hurting the team's defense as a whole -- a defense that has only held opponents to under 23 points per quarter four times through five games.

The Lakers defense has always been streaky, at best, as shown here in January and here two months later during last season.  This year will not be a rebuilding year for the Lakers, even with their head coach out of the picture.  In a way, the Lakers have hit the reset button on their season.  Lucky for them, they are only five games in, shrinking the blast radius of the news, but they have a long road ahead of them to get this train back on track. 

They have the talent to do so, but the removal of Brown will push this team to the brink early in the season, and I think it will take significantly more time to get this team on track.  While I don't agree with the firing, I do think this team will get back on track and most likely make the playoffs.  They're just too good.  But then again, take a look at the 2012 Boston Red Sox...

Dwight Howards Makes Big Fuss Over Nothing, Complains About New ASG Ballot

The 2013 All-Star Game, which will be held in Houston, Tex., the home of the Rockets, has changed the format of its ballot to include just three frontcourt positions, instead of two forwards and one center.  This has Dwight Howard in an uproar.

After being put in his place earlier in the season by Shaquille O'Neal, who stated that Howard is not a true big man, but an evolving forward who can play both down low and even around the perimeter, Howard is still adamantly against how some see him.

"I don't like it at all, we work just as hard as anybody else," Howard said.  "I don't think it's fair to take away a position which has been here for life.  You need a center on the court.  So I don't think it's right.  That's like taking away a guard.  That's how I feel.  It's been that way since they started All-Star Games, so why change it now? Because centers shoot 3's now?"

The center position is rapidly evolving, like the other positions on the court, with players taking on different roles depending on situations, man coverage, or the entire style of offense.  Howard's stance is that because centers are becoming more versatile, all the more reason they should be included.

"The game changes every day," he said. "It changes every year.  You look at the game back then and now, centers are bigger, stronger, faster.  Guards are bigger, stronger, faster.  So the game evolves.  That doesn't mean you take out a position because of the game evolving, because the players that play center are evolving also."

Valid point, but its just the All-Star game, Dwight.  It doesn't matter, it just looks good on the resume.  Play well enough, you're going to make it anyway, who cares if you don't make it as a center and instead as a forward?  He's one of the premier big men in the NBA, and should embrace his new role.  Instead of spending his time wallowing over this, he should concern himself more with adapting to the new Lakers offense, who are off to a 1-3 start.

The Real Superman vs. Dwight Howard

"We as players, we always watch people before us," Shaquille O'Neal said.  "When I came in, it was Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon, guys who played like true centers who played inside.  What we have now are centers that are going to the European style, which is a lot of pick-and-roll.  Dwight Howard, who's a pick-and-roll player, some people say he's the best center in the league, but me being an old-school center, I'm going to go with [Brooke] Lopez and Andrew Bynum because they play with their back to the basket."

Shaq was speaking in a roundtable discussion for NBA.com when he made these comments.  Since they were made, Howard hasn't been handling them well, apparently.

"He hated the fact when he played that the older guys were talking about him and how he played and now he's doing the exact same thing," Howard said.  "Just let it go.  There's no sense for him to be talking trash to me.  He did his thing in the league.  He's one of the most dominant players to ever play the game.  Just sit back and relax.  You did your thing.  Your time is up.  So, I don't really care.  I don't really care.  He can say whatever he wants to say."

Easy, big fella.  Howard has been compared to Shaq in the past after playing for the Orlando Magic and using the nickname "Superman."  Everybody knows Shaq is basketball's only Superman, and Howard should have been out of the running as soon as he threw that ball in wearing the cape during the All-Star Weekend Dunk Contest.  And now, Howard's career path mimics Shaq's to the T at this stage in his career, starting in Orlando and moving to Los Angeles.

Shaq, never one to let anyone get the last word, all but closed the book on this "feud."

"You have to care to have a reaction," O'Neal said. "I've got businesses to run. I always tell people that in order to step in my shoes you have big shoes to fill. For him, he's going to have to at least win three [titles] to get people's respect."