The Los Angeles Lakers have plenty of issues on the court, but an issue in the locker room may be blooming, as well. On Tuesday morning, Lakers coach Byron Scott spoke with reporters ahead of the upcoming game against the Sacramento Kings and touched on comments made by disgruntled power forward Carlos Boozer on Monday.
"He's not the coach,"Scott said in no uncertain terms when asked about Boozer publicly saying he was not of the opinion that he deserved to get benched. "It's my opinion."
Scott did not waver in his speech or leave any doubt about who was making the decisions for the Los Angeles Lakers in the locker room.
"As a coach, sometimes, you have to make tough decisions," Scott continued. "It was a tough decision, but I made it. I'm going to stick to it, and we're just going to go from there."
A day earlier, Boozer made it clear he did not agree with the change and said he had not had any dialogue with his coach regarding the switch. To his credit, the veteran forward also made it clear that he would go along with the coach's plan in the hopes the team would win more often.
"I didn't need to necessarily talk to Jeremy (Lin). He came to me," Scott responded when asked if there was need for dialogue between the coach and his newly benched power forward. "So no, I don't feel I need to clear the air."
Boozer had particularly appeared to take issue with defense being used as a driving factor in the 33-year-old being demoted. On Tuesday, Scott again began to discuss the defensive improvement of the first team to justify his changes.
Scott said, "I thought Ed (Davis) and Ronnie (Price) in that starting unit got exactly what we talked about in that first half (against New Orleans) especially, where the guys were much better on that defensive end of the floor."
Entering Tuesday night's game, Scott appeared satisfied with benching Boozer and Lin for defensive reasons, and no discussion on the matter was scheduled or expected between the coach and his veteran forward. Whether or not that is entirely healthy remains to be seen, but that is the way it is.
