Every team with championship aspirations, regardless of the sports, needs to have one man or a group of men capable of doing the job, making the right adjustments and saying the right words to motivate players to take their game to the next level.
You can have the best players on your roster, but if your coaching staff isn’t good enough, you have nothing. We saw some of these cases in the NBA this past season but also watched the Los Angeles Lakers and their coaching staff thriving throughout the whole season, ultimately winning the NBA championship in the bubble.
Of course, Frank Vogel gets all the spotlight because he’s the head coach but Vogel made sure to surround himself with a lot of talented people that became world champions for the first time a couple of days ago.
Today, we’re going to take a look at the people who helped Vogel take LeBron James and Anthony Davis to win an NBA title, dominating their rivals stage after stage.
Breaking down the Los Angeles Lakers coaching staff
Vogel made sure to bring people that would give him different perspectives to his staff and the results couldn’t be better. He was joined by Jason Kidd, Lionel Hollins, Phil Handy, Miles Simon, Mike Penberthy and Quinton Crawford as assistant coaches.
Kidd had tenures with the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks, respectively, before taking the Lakers job. He had some success with the Nets, recording a 44-38 record, earning two Eastern Conference Coach of the Month awards.
Vogel also had Lionel Hollins, who spent some quality time as the Memphis Grizzlies head coach. Hollins is the winningest coach in Grizzlies’ franchise history (214-201) and even took the team to the Western Conference Finals in 2013, where the San Antonio Spurs swept them.
Phil Handy is another name to know within the Lakers coaching staff. He spent the last five seasons with the Toronto Raptors, winning the NBA title last year. He has won three titles as an assistant coach, one with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016, the one with Toronto last season and the most recent, won a couple of days ago.
The Lakers also named Miles Simon, Mike Penberthy and Quinton Crawford as assistant coaches on Frank Vogel’s staff. Moreover, the team also named Greg St. Jean as player development coach/advance scout, Dru Anthrop as head video coordinator/player development coach, and Jon Pastorek, as assistant video coordinator/player development coach before the season started.
This group of men did a terrific job, taking the Lakers to win their first NBA championship in 10 years. The chemistry around the team was huge; you could tell they were focused on winning and these people offered them the best help to do so.
It’s pretty common to see players getting all the attention and the praise when one team wins a championship. However, the people behind those players, the one making the plays, creating the strategy to win their rivals, often is overlooked. The Lakers had a terrific coaching staff that didn’t rest until they won and fans can’t be happier now.
It’ll be interesting to see if they can stay together since some coaches like Jason Kidd and Phil Handy have been linked with a move away from Los Angeles in recent days.
