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"Soft."
"Man up."
"Toughness."
All of these cliches have been heavily associated with Los Angeles Lakers head coach Byron Scott's coaching style and pet phrases since he took over the reins of the team in the summer of 2014. But perhaps more frequently than any of those, Scott has criticized his team for not being ready to play.
The Lakers' 106-98 fell to the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night in which the team trailed by double digits for the majority of the game. Following the loss, Scott once again found his team's readiness lacking. "[The first quarter boos were] justified because we just didn't seem ready to play," Scott told Serena Winters of Lakers Nation and the rest of the assembled media during his postgame press conference.
This was not the first time Scott has accused his teams of being less than prepared to play, as documented by Darius Soriano of Forum Blue and Gold and Jerry Khachoyan of Lakers Outsiders on Twitter after the game:
Today. https://t.co/EfJkHvi2PO
— Darius Soriano (@forumbluegold) March 16, 2016
Sunday. https://t.co/q9BAAmco7w
— Darius Soriano (@forumbluegold) March 16, 2016
February 10th. https://t.co/z2hBs2lde2
— Darius Soriano (@forumbluegold) March 16, 2016
January 28th. https://t.co/CvDbM4B8ma
— Darius Soriano (@forumbluegold) March 16, 2016
January 16th. https://t.co/fNzPfaGjOK
— Darius Soriano (@forumbluegold) March 16, 2016
December 6th. https://t.co/WWqaQQNHrU
— Darius Soriano (@forumbluegold) March 16, 2016
April 2015. https://t.co/AFzWiWMdTQ
— Darius Soriano (@forumbluegold) March 16, 2016
November 2014. https://t.co/Lj772ZOTvJ
— Darius Soriano (@forumbluegold) March 16, 2016
@forumbluegold From Mar 2013, in Cleveland: https://t.co/f95lAhTlYM
— Jerry Khachoyan (@TheArmoTrader) March 16, 2016
@forumbluegold @AnthonyIrwinLA From Feb 2011, in Cleveland, after losing 26 straight https://t.co/1D3DFwPlYG pic.twitter.com/GFkg18X77d
— Jerry Khachoyan (@TheArmoTrader) March 16, 2016
Bonus Round!
@forumbluegold 2008: https://t.co/NHEwws1IKZ 2002: https://t.co/dsVP2PlXUs
— Wait For Dusk (@waitfordusk) March 16, 2016
Poor Byron Scott. If only any of these totally different rosters of different players and only one common thread would just play hard, then he wouldn't have the worst winning percentage of any coach with 1,000 or more games under their belt. After all, it's not like he's ever made a mistake in preparation for a game:
Byron Scott thought that calling the timeout late in the 3rd qtr would move the ball up. "They told me no and I said s***" #lakers
— Bob Garcia IV (@bgarcia90) March 16, 2016
Oh.
In all seriousness, the Lakers were sluggish to start the game, but at some point a coach continuously blaming his players for the same things is a problem. Either Scott is not properly communicating what the players need to do to get ready for these games, or the team is not getting up to play for him on a consistent enough basis that he's having to call them out for it.
Either way, that's not a positive look for him, and Scott needing to so constantly harp on the same issue of readiness is not exactly a feather in his cap going into the offseason with the team reportedly "torn" on whether or not to retain him.
You can follow this author on Twitter at @hmfaigen.