Lakers Luke Walton Belongs in Coach of the Year Discussion

Los Angeles Lakers coach Luke Walton is the talk of the town.

From his first game until game no. 20, he has made surprising decisions that have paid off time and again. In that season opener, the debate centered on whether the first year head coach would start Jordan Clarkson or Lou Williams at shooting guard alongside D'Angelo Russell.

In his pregame press conference, Walton refused to show his hand and said the decision had not yet been made. This is something Walton has consistently done over his first 20 games, whenever lineups have required tweaks due to injuries. Reporters, and presumably his opponents, do not know who the Lakers will start until the last possible moment. Call it a glimpse into the coach's competitive spirit.

On Opening Night, surprisingly, the 36-year-old coach started 31-year-old Nick Young at shooting guard, pairing Young alongside 20-year-old D'Angelo Russell in a move that epitomized how far and how fast the team had changed from the 17-win team that ended the season in April. Back then, Russell and Young had trouble sitting in the same locker room.

Twenty games into Walton's tenure, Young and Russell may both be on the shelf due to injuries, but the coach's decision proved to be the right one. The Lakers are 10-10, largely due to the difficult decision to start Young and leave both Clarkson and Williams as scoring threats for a second unit that is torching the NBA on a nightly basis. As much as his three-pointers have energized the team's scoring, Young has been the Lakers' best perimeter defender and a defensive asset to the starting unit.

In Chicago on Wednesdayth, however, Walton was without Young due to calf strain that would bench the reinvented shooting guard for a minimum of two weeks. Looking for a player to match up against Dwyane Wade, Walton again refused to leak his replacement in his pregame press conference. Predictably unpredictable, the coach overlooked the easy choices of Clarkson and Williams and instead went with 19-year-old rookie forward Brandon Ingram.

Ingram's length and defensive ability helped the team hold the Bulls to 90 points on the night and walk away with a shocking victory. Again, Walton had made a tough call that did not seem intuitive at first. Again, he had made the right decision. The proof was in the pudding, as the short-handed Lakers, without their starting backcourt, beat the Bulls in Chicago.

Walton started the regular season with a considerably better roster than the Lakers featured on the night Kobe Bryant scored 60 points to record win no. 17 in an 82-game season that would be entirely forgettable had it not doubled as Bryant's farewell tour. However, Walton played an active role in building the team over the summer and maximized every roster spot entering the regular season.

Often, he has refused to make the easy decision when choosing lineups. However, when asked if there is a vote, Walton makes it clear that he listens to his counsel, but he is running a dictatorship, not a democracy. Walton owns that final call, and it tends to be the correct call.

Before leaving for the current road trip, forward Julius Randle sat out due to a hip pointer injury. LA needed a starting power forward and the obvious choice was to promote Larry Nance Jr., who started 22 games for the team at the position a season earlier. Nance had also been playing well during the current season, so this one seemed like a no-brainer. Staying true to form, Walton refused to reveal which player would assume the position when reporters queried the coach an hour and 45 minutes before tip-off.

When the starters were announced against Atlanta, Thomas Robinson started against Paul Milsap and the Hawks. Robinson had only played 21 total minute over the first 15 games of the season, but that night, he finished with nine points and eight rebounds in 15 minutes. The Lakers won, and again, Walton had made a decision that most coaches simply would not have made and most experts would not have predicted. Again, Walton had made the correct call, evidenced by a Lakers' win.

Over the first 20 games of the season, Walton has already displayed enough cunning and creativity that it is tough not to give the coach a respectful shove to the front of the line in the discussion for Coach of the Year. It may seem like early days on that front, but it's not. The Lakers have already powered through a quarter of the 2016-17 season and accumulated 10 wins. LA did not hit the 10-win total until Feb. 2 a season ago, so Walton could literally lose every single game for the next two months without falling behind the pace set by his predecessor.

With every passing game, the reality is becoming more and more evident: Yes, Walton is that good.