The Walton Hire
The Cleveland Cavaliers have hired Luke Walton as an assistant coach. Chris Fedor has a short piece on the hiring, as does Adrian Wojnarowski.
Before his firing a brief 11 games into the current season, Walton logged two identical (31-41) seasons as the coach of the Sacramento Kings franchise over two pandemic-truncated seasons. As he concluded his head coaching tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers, Walton notched a similar winning percentage, averaging 36 wins a year in his final two 82-game seasons in that position.
According to a Sporting News article at the time of his Kings firing, he’s guaranteed $11.5 million for 2021-22 and 2022-23 from the Kings. A Sports Illustrated piece on his firing indicated “his stock had fallen” but given that he began his head coaching career going 39-4 with “one of the greatest teams ever assembled” in Golden State, that isn’t necessarily saying a lot.
Luke Walton back in the Land brings back memories of one of my favorite non-playoff lineups: 2013's Herculoids, featuring Walton, Speights, Livingston, and Ellington. The first 3 Herculoids figured prominently the next few years for Golden State.https://t.co/h6soH4aGnB pic.twitter.com/1JtwZeUGvE
— HoopsDogg (@oldseaminer) May 31, 2022
-The Cavs really have something with Livingston / Ellington / Speights / Walton / Miles. I cannot stress enough how putrid 4th quarters used to be. The Cavaliers bench is dominating opponents. As for the starters, they’ve gone through the grinder this season. And while there is much work to be done – the talent is undeniable. It’s nice to see games like this where the Cavs seem to put it all together. They had a gameplan, they didn’t get pushed around by a team playing tougher (been a huge problem so far this season) and they executed offense in the halfcourt. I hope the basketball acumen of guys like Walton and Livingston is being rapidly absorbed by the “rising stars”.