Game 22: Byron Scott - Omelette a la Scott

With the final buzzer of the 2013-2014 season still audible, Mike D’Antoni abruptly resigned after two seasons as head coach of the Lakers. The situation he signed up for had rapidly turned to shit. The 2012-2013 Lakers -- the infamous “Now This Is Gonna Be Fun” superteam -- were less of a team and more of a collection of bodies for Kobe Bryant to yell at. Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol were too slow for D’Antoni’s system, Steve Nash’s leg turned to dust, and Kobe tore his Achilles’ tendon just before they squeaked into the playoffs. The next year was an even bigger disaster. Dwight left town and the Lakers brass, feeling punch drunk from this embarrassing free agent debacle, signed Kobe to a two-year extension worth $48.5 million. This contract, one of the most infamous in NBA history, financially hobbled the Lakers and sent a signal to free agents that the Lakers weren’t to be taken seriously. D’Antoni said he resigned because the Lakers wouldn’t pick up the option on his fourth year in advance. But in reality, he thought his odds with jumping out of the burning plane without a parachute were better than staying onboard.

Enter: Byron Scott. The former starting shooting guard for the Showtime Lakers turned coach was hired and immediately set up to fail. But it’s hard to feel bad for him. He knew exactly what he was getting himself into.

Scott played from 1983-1997, eleven of those seasons coming with the Lakers, including Kobe’s rookie season. What followed was a quick ascent to the peak of top tier NBA coaches and a fall that was just as swift. In 2000, Scott took over a New Jersey Nets team that never placed higher than 3rd place since leaving the ABA for the NBA in 1976. Within a year, he had led them to the first of back-to-back NBA Finals appearances. But his relationship with superstar Jason Kidd apparently soured and to Scott’s shock, he was fired mid season in 2004 while the Nets were in first place.

After a stint in New Orleans that saw him win Coach of the Year but not much else and a few years trying to clean up the mess LeBron James left in Cleveland, Scott became a television analyst for Time Warner Cable SportsNet in L.A. This seemed like a more natural and relaxed fit for a coach whose coaching style had worn out its welcome in an NBA just starting to proselytize shoot-happy point guards and coaches who weren’t grizzled assholes to young players. He also said this about three-point shots in 2013: “I don’t believe it wins championships.” Really.

But why was he hired? Scott sat for three interviews with the new head of Lakers basketball operations Jim Buss and general manager Mitch Kupchuk. In these interviews, Scott said that

“When we sat down, we all said, ‘It’s going to be rough these two or three years. Are you OK with that?’ I said . . . ‘I’m a pretty strong guy. If you guys are OK, then we’re all on the same page.”

In other words, Scott was to be General Patton. The tank commander leading his armored regiment of rookies, has-beens, slow veterans, and the remains of Kobe Bryant into battle. If Jim Buss did this on purpose, then maybe he doesn’t deserve the scorn that’s been heaped on him this decade. But whatever the reasoning, it worked. In 2014-2015, the Lakers lost rookie Julius Randle to a broken leg on opening night and finished with a 21-61 record, their first 60 loss record in franchise history. The next year they broke that record, going 17-65. But Scott had done his part: The Lakers were bad enough that the protected 2015 pick they traded to the Suns in 2010 would stick with the Lakers for at least another year. Los Angeles had now drafted the young core of Randle, D’Angelo Russell, Larry Nance Jr., Jordan Clarkson and Brandon Ingram. And with the Kobe Bryant retirement tour finally coming to a close, the Lakers could move onto the future. A future without head coach Byron Scott.

Someone had to be the sacrificial lamb. It’s just that usually they don’t know the inner workings of the slaughterhouse.

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Omelette a la Scott

3 eggs

1 tomato, chopped

6 fresh mushrooms, sliced

¼ cup milk or cream

6 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded

¼ onion, chopped

½ bell pepper, chopped

Margarine

Beat eggs until fluffy. Add milk and mix to combine. Melt butter in a medium sized skillet. Pour egg mixture into skillet and cook slightly, until edges begin to puff.

Add remaining ingredients to one half of the omelette. With spatula, flip the empty half of the omelette over the vegetables and cheese. Press down slightly and heat until cheese has melted, flipping once if desired.

“A quick and easy dish that I can prepare for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.”

According to the interview that accompanied this recipe, Scott only ate two meals a day year-round during his playing days. His body gained weight too easily, so on game days, he would eat his pre-game meal as early as 12:30pm. That’s a tank of a metabolism.

I should’ve taken that into account when I made this enormous omelette. I went with 1 mushroom instead of 6 because the texture grosses me out, but every other ingredient was followed exactly as Scott prepared it. And what I was left with was an overflowing egg quesadilla that cracked when I tried to fold it.

As you may know by now, I’m not an egg man. But the crunch of the raw vegetables made it palatable. It was bland and unimpressive, just like Scott’s coaching of the Lakers.