Why would LAL go after Mike Brown

Sounds like it was because of his interview: "The way Mike impressed the three of us, I would think Kobe would be impressed as well." - Jim Buss, Lakers executive VP of player personnel

Is there a coach that really makes a difference in the NBA? College of course, but NBA coaches Phil Jackson included are puppets to manage or not screw up the heavyily paid talents IMO.

Having said that Mike Brown will do just fine...

I believe coaching plays a major role in all professional sports. MLB, perhaps, is the least important, as there are no real designed plays or strategy. However, with football, basketball and hockey, coaching is very important. Theres a reason that Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, Pop, and Sloan are some of the winningest coaches. Obviously talent plays a large role as well, but if you put Leonard Hamilton, Isiah Thomas and Eddie Jordan on these teams, they would not do very well. its easy to praise the players when a team is doing well. when they are doing bad, the coach takes much of the blame. Unlike a QB, a coach only gets the negative blame, rarely is praised for much publicly. But that doesnt' mean they aren't important and a team will go much further with a good coach than with a bad one. Look at when Rudy T took over LAL for 1 season. Look at the Bulls when Skiles took over. Look at the Celtics when Rivers took over. Look at the Heat when Stan van Gundy took over. Look at the Knicks when Riley took over. Good coaches can improve good teams quickly and bad coaches can destroy good teams.

No way I'm qualified to judge wheter Brown is a good coach or not but Heisler the NBA writer in the LA Times panned the choice of Brown in a pretty strongly worded article. He gets a fair amount of respect as a writer. He's pretty locked into the Lakers and says the call was made by Jim Buss. Kobe didn't sign off on it and apparently of the major candidates Brown was the only one he didn't endorse. (From Heisler) They rushed the hiring job because they were worried that Golden State might hire Brown before them so they didn't go as far as they could have with other candidates. (Information from Heisler's column) They interviewed Brian Shaw, Rick Adelman and Brown. Other candidates they wanted were gone ie. like Doc Rivers. (Heisler and Simers article) Jim Buss gets some flack already as I think he was involved with Rudy T when they hired him and perhaps the drafting of Andrew Bynum. I don't know the details. I guess the moves he's been strong on have not worked out well. In fairness to him Bynum isn't a flop yet and we all know he can't do these things without approval from his Dad and probably Kupchak. I would say Kupchak could have nixed any of these moves if he wanted to.

MLB, perhaps, is the least important, as there are no real designed plays or strategy. unless your starting pitcher goes 9 and your pinch-hitting plays out as no-brainers I'd have to say think again ...I'd say there's games this makes or breaks you just like the other two major sports...its just different, all more diliberate, and then sometimes faster decisions like Rag's call to suicide squeeze for a win last night in Milwaukee....see The Arizona Diamondbacks for some worthwhile coaching/ managing that has equaled more wins....if anything with less of a roster than last year.