Blogocentric Formulations

Lakers Coaching Woes & Our Impatient Culture

I'm sure this will sound blasphemous (good thing I'm living in Orange County now!), but I've never been a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers. They may be one of the most successful basketball franchises in history, but I've always felt like the team carries itself with a certain level of entitlement. Many on the team (and many more of their fans) have this sense of indignation whenever the team fails to make it to the finals, win a championship, etc. And with the latest news, it doesn't seem like they've humbled themselves any.

The sensational Phil Jackson (coached teams to 11 different NBA Championships) left at the end of the 2010-2011 season. They hired Mike Brown to replace him, and Brown coached the team to the playoffs in the 2011-2012 season and had a 1-4 start to the 2012-2013 season before being unceremoniously fired by the management. For having a losing record after only five games of an eight-two game season? I'm sure there were many other considerations that went into the decision, but it sure seems a hell of a lot like they didn't give the new coach a lot of leniency when it came to winning. After *only* making it to the playoffs last year and losing four of the first five games of the season, that's enough to give someone the boot?

Basketball isn't my sport of choice anyway, so maybe that has something to do with it, but this seems like an incredibly rash decision made by panicked executives who worry that there's a possibility their team might *gasp* actually not win the championship or make the playoffs this year. Since the 1993-1994 season, the Lakers have failed to make the playoffs only twice (the last time was since 2004-2005). I know, I know... everyone wants to win... but they just fired a coach with $11 million left on his contract after only five games of the season? That's less than 7% of the total games they'll play this year!

I've noticed the same thing in television series, something that's more aligned with my interests. Ever notice how shows will be canceled after two or three episodes? Or just as bad, moved around from time slot to time slot when they aren't instant hits that beat the ratings of every other network's shows? I don't know what it is with the currently level of impatience everyone has, but when did we start expecting success to the point that we start thinking about cutting our losses before anyone really has a chance to see how things play out?

Fire Mike Brown if you've lost twelve of the first fifteen, or fifteen of the first twenty... not after losing four of the first five.

Pull a TV show from the schedule when it's under performed most other shows on the same time slot for several weeks... not after it finishes second to AMERICAN IDOL two weeks in a row.

Chastise someone for not calling you back after a day or two... not twenty minutes after you leave them a message.

There's such an expectation of instant success or instant getting-what-you-want in this culture that I wonder how many good or even great things we're missing because we never give them a chance. I miss the times when networks would give a show a whole season to see if it was successful. Or the times when an employer would give an employee (and vice versa) a year of their time before writing off the job as a bad fit and jumping ship. I miss the days where people actually gave things a chance for a little while before jumping to the next thing... and I often wonder what could have been if people would just stay the course a little longer.

Maybe Mike Brown would have been a total disaster this year. Maybe his successor, Mike D'Antoni, will give the Lakers their precious championship and will be the change they needed in the franchise. Maybe not. We'll never really know because Mike Brown wasn't ever given a chance to turn his season around.