“Lakers head coach Byron Scott talks about the upcoming NBA season at the Lakers training faciltiy in El Segundo, CA on Tuesday, September 9, 2014. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze) “
After once talking to his team about championship aspirations, Lakers coach Byron Scott has experienced too many losses and absorbed too many injuries to make a pretty understandable conclusion.
“We need pieces at every position,” Scott said on Thursday after practice at the Lakers’ facility in El Segundo.
Yet, the Lakers (13-40) did not make any moves leading into Thursday’s trade deadline. The Lakers expressed a “ton” of interest in guard Goran Dragic, according to an NBA source familiar with the situation. But the Phoenix Suns traded Dragic and his brother, Zoran, to the Miami Heat for Danny Granger, Justin Hamilton and two first-round picks. The Lakers, meanwhile, were unwilling to part ways with their own draft selections.
“It didn’t seem like anything was going to happen,” Scott said after having brief conversations with Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak. “So I don’t know how close it was. He didn’t give me an indication of that.”
They can keep a first-round pick owed to Phoenix as part of the Steve Nash deal if it lands in the top five. The Lakers also have a mid first-round pick stemmed from the Jeremy Lin trade. And with Kobe Bryant, Nick Young, Ryan Kelly and Julius Randle as the lone players under contract next season, the Lakers will have enough money to sign a marquee free agent to a maximum-level salary.
All of that prompted Scott say, “I have a lot of faith” in Kupchak and vice president of player personnel Jim Buss in rebuilding the roster this summer.
“I believe in Jim and believe in Mitch,” Scott said. “The game plan they showed in me months ago, I believe in that. It’s going to take us some time. We know it’s going to be a process. You just have to stick to your guns.”
Still, Scott tempered with his optimism with some cautiousness, mindful that the Lakers are on pace to miss the playoffs and finish with the worst record in franchise history.
“We’re not going to be able to solve that problem in one year and one summer,” Scott said. “So it’s going to take us some time.”
Scott will use the 29 remaining games to evaluate how the team’s players could fit into the Lakers’ plans. Lin, Ronnie Price, Carlos Boozer and Wesley Johnson will become unrestricted free agents, while the Lakers will hold team options on Jordan Clarkson, Jordan Hill, Tarick Black and Robert Sacre. Lakers forward Ed Davis will also opt out of his $1.2 million player option in hopes of a long-term deal here.
“What I can do is implement my plan as a coach on what we have to do as a basketball team and starting to build those blocks right now,” Scott said. “Some of these guys who are here will be here. They’ll have a year under me of what I want done on both ends of the floor. I’ll still build that culture.”
The Lakers have maintained they will not intentionally lose games. But with the Lakers losing 15 of their past 16 games, each contest will likely give the Lakers a better chance in receiving a top five pick. Though Dragic could sign a five-year deal worth $100 million with Miami, as opposed to a four-year deal worth $80 million with any other team, he will represent one of many marquee free agents the Lakers will pursue.
Perhaps that explains Scott downplaying Dragic’s arrival with Miami other than conceding the move “makes them a better basketball team.”
“I didn’t think about it,” Scott said. “When someone told me he went to Miami. I was like, ‘Okay.’ That’s my attitude with everything. If they’re not here, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Scott’s optimism with the Lakers front office goes beyond spending 11 seasons of his 14-year NBA career here where he won three league championships.
Though Kobe Bryant played only 35 games because of a season-ending shoulder injury, Scott believes he can return both for the final year of his contract next season that pays him $25 million and an additional season.
“If we get the right pieces into next year and do a pretty good job of playing basketball like I think we’re capable of doing and he stays healthy for the next year,” Scott said, “and the next summer we get a couple of more pieces, he’ll take a hard look at what we got and say, ‘Maybe I’ll go one more.’ That’s up to him and how he feels. But he proved to me and this summer during the season that he can go a couple more years if he wanted to.”
In his 19th NBA season, Bryant averaged 22.3 points and completed a few milestones including climbing to third place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list, posting two triples doubles and recording a career-high 17 assists in a game. Yet, Bryant shot a career-low 37.3 percent from the field. After averaging 35.4 minutes through the first 27 games, Bryant also sat out of eight of the next 16 contests for rest purposes.
After suffering three major injuries in consecutive seasons, how can Bryant successfully get through two more, let alone, without having more setbacks?
“You have to talk to him about that,” Scott said. “But a lot of it will have to do with how he feels. But another half will have to do with what we have. If we can take the load off of him with not having to log 30 plus minutes and allow him not have to do so much on the offensive end, that takes its toll as well. If that load is lightened considerably, he will definitely think about it.”
The Lakers are entering uncharted territory very foreign to when they once collected 16 NBA championships. But Scott went through massive rebuilding projects with the former New Jersey Nets (2000-2004), New Orleans Hornets (2004-09) and Cleveland Cavaliers (2010-2013).
The Nets went 26-56 in Scott’s first year in the 2000-01 season before making two consecutive Finals appearances. The Hornets went 18-64 in the Scott’s first year in the 2004-05 season before making two consecutive playoff appearances in 2007 and 2008.
With that framework, Scott said that has helped him “understand the process better.”
“I believe in it and see it. It’s a matter of us making it happen,” Scott said. “It gets me excited for this summer.”
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Follow L.A. Daily News Lakers beat writer Mark Medina on Twitter and on Facebook. E-mail him at mark.medina@langnews.com