The Lakers have one major condition to hire a new coach

• The Lakers are looking for a new coach.
• They have several candidates already.
• Their next coach is expected to be there for the long run.

The Lakers Don’t Want To Keep Hiring Coaches

The Los Angeles Lakers have had three different coaches in the past six years. They even fired Frank Vogel not so long after he coached the team to an NBA championship.

Needless to say, that’s not much of a recipe for success. More often than not, the latest NBA champions have featured coaches who’ve built their projects for years, such as Steve Kerr, Erik Spoelstra, Mike Malone, or Mike Budenholzer.

That’s what the Lakers want to do. According to Jovan Buha of The Athletic, they don’t want someone to focus only on the end of the LeBron James era, but also to lead them into the future.

The Lakers Want A Long-Term Coach

“This is a person who will not only shepherd the end of the LeBron Ad era, be it another year, another 2 years, 3 years on the longer side,” said Buha. “Ideally for the Lakers, this would be a coach who can grow with the franchise and be there for a long time and provide some level of stability and be the next Eric Spoelstra or the next Steve Kerr or the next Michael Malone and be a bedrock for the franchise and be a coach that can be there 5,7,10, 12 years this is a really big decision.”

Lakers GM Rob Pelinka

This Will Be A Major Decision For The Lakers

Buha adds that the Lakers must be extremely cautious with their new hire, as this person will be responsible for shaping the future of one of the winningest organizations in major sports:

“I think this is the biggest decision of the Lakers offseason because it not only affects this upcoming season but really the direction of the franchise for the foreseeable future. I don’t think that this is a situation where the Lakers would pull the plug after a year and probably not even after two years necessarily,” Buha added.

see also

JJ Redick explains why he wants to coach the Lakers

LeBron still has to make a decision about his future as well, but he’s firmly expected to stay in Los Angeles for the remainder of his career. Even so, this team needs to think about the big picture and not jeopardize their future.