Should the Lakers be targeting Becky Hammon for head coach?

In this week’s mailbag, we look at a number of questions regarding the Lakers coaching search, including whether the team should be looking at Becky Hammon.

After a bit of a delay, we are back to answer your questions about the Lakers. Predictably, the lion’s share of the questions were about the team’s search for a head coach, who they are targeting and, notably, who they haven’t targeted.

Let’s dive on in!

Becky Hammon was quite the topic of conversation in the comments section. While I’m not surprised her name came up, I was surprised at the tone and direction of the conversation, as if it was some indictment on the front office that she hasn’t been linked to the Lakers job.

First, there’s the fact that hiring a head coach is a two-way street. The Lakers can have interest in a candidate, and if it’s not reciprocated, then the search ends there.

While I do not know Hammon’s thoughts on the Lakers position, I know that last year, she gave some thoughts on her coaching in the WNBA in an interview with Time and it doesn’t sound like she’s chomping at the bit to get back into the NBA.

“My happiness is most important,” she says. She points out that the NBA’s 82-game grind, for example, is punishing for any parent of young children; the WNBA’s 40-game schedule, which spans summer vacation, is much more family-friendly. “I love being here,” she says. “I love being back on the women’s side. I don’t need the stamp of approval from the NBA.”

Think about the situations. She’s in the WNBA, coaching the two-time defending champions in a league that is more family-friendly, in her words, and is one of the favorites to win the title this year. She has the MVP of the league, a loaded roster and is in a great situation overall.

The Lakers are looking for a third coach in five years. They have LeBron James, which is going to lead to an even larger amount of scrutiny on top of being the coach of the Lakers. You have to navigate that for two seasons before leading the team into the post-LeBron era where nothing is certain, assuming you’re even still around at that point and haven’t been fired.

Which one of those sounds more appealing?

It’s also not even a slam dunk hire, and that’s not me downplaying what Hammon has done. She’s been fantastic in the WNBA, but it’s not a guarantee that translates to the NBA.

As you can see, there are a lot of reasons that the Lakers haven’t been linked to Hammon. She’s in a great position and if she leaves, I’d imagine it would be for the perfect situation and the Lakers ain’t that.

Now, let’s double back to that first half of the previous question to discuss Ty Lue and why things have gone quiet. The answer is we don’t know the answer.

Lue is not on an expiring contract, though he is entering his final year. Having a lame-duck head coach is pretty much a no-no in the NBA, so something does have to happen.

In my opinion, the lack of noise is not a good thing for the Lakers. If Lue was unhappy with his situation, he’d be using the Lakers as leverage more. The fact he’s not doing that probably means things are trending in the right direction.

It’s also worth noting that the last we heard from Lue, he said he wanted to remain with the Clippers and pushed back against the interest in the Lakers job. RIght now, there’s no reason to believe anything different.

We had a couple variations of this question, so let’s discuss it. To me, I think the answer is pretty clear. Save for a few exceptions, the depth model is the right approach in my opinion.

The Lakers won a title by building a deep team around LeBron James and Anthony Davis. With the evidence right there and so recent, it’s hard to make the argument against doing that.

Of the players the Lakers have been linked to, I think only Donovan Mitchell might be good enough to warrant skipping out on the depth option, but even then, I have some questions.

Going for three stars limits so much what you can do in terms of building a roster and requires you to nail everything on the fringes. While Pelinka and the front office have done that at times, they haven’t done it nearly consistently enough to think they could win a title going that route, in my opinion.

Well, if you look at why people were praised and the process, you see why the reactions were what they were.

Luke Walton was coming off a year in which he led the Warriors for one-third of the season and won Coach of the Month. Darvin Ham was a long-time assistant that everyone universally agreed deserved a chance. Neither reaction was wrong at the time, but neither coach had proven much on their own.

As for Vogel, he was hired only after the team badly mishandled the Ty Lue situation and amidst the reports that they were forcing Jason Kidd onto his staff. It was clearly the team’s Plan B option and not a preferred one, which shaped the narrative.

Perhaps the answer is to take context into account when reacting to a head coach hiring. But also, there’s always going to be an amount of uncertainty when it comes to hiring a coach, particularly a first-time one.

As always, thank you guys for the questions. These should be more regular at least through free agency, so be sure to look out for our weekly posts asking questions to submit yours!

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.