Luke Walton Tapped as Los Angeles Lakers Next Head Coach

The Los Angeles Lakers as a team announced on Friday night that Luke Walton has agreed to coach them, and they expressed how happy they were to have him back, noting that the Lakers dismissed Byron Scott as coach Sunday.

Through a statement in a press release General Manager Mitch Kupchak highlighted how they exactly felt saying “We’re excited to bring Luke back to Los Angeles, where we feel he’s going to start an outstanding coaching career”.

The latter added; “He’s one of the brightest young coaching minds in the game and we feel fortunate that he’ll be leading the on-court future of our team.”

Luke Walton helped the Lakers, as a player, to win NBA championships in 2009 and 2010 under then-head coach Phil Jackson. Further with time, playing the role of an assistant coach with Golden State, Walton assisted the Warriors capture a league title last year and put together a record 73-win regular season.

Later Golden State Coach Steve Kerr was named coach of the year this week; nevertheless Walton had an equal hand in the Warriors’ success by coaching Golden State to a 39-4 record with a 24-0 start while Kerr recovered from back surgery. Walton finished eighth in the COY balloting.

A popular name since the end of the regular season, Walton had drawn interest from the New York Knicks,  as a the Sacramento Kings and the Houston Rockets, which received permission to interview Walton after being eliminated from the playoffs by the Warriors in five games.

Covering all these updates, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelbune, The Lakers interviewed Walton in Oakland on Thursday. Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck first reported the news on Twitter.

Twitter reactions appeared positive shortly after the news on Friday night.