The Lakers won’t experience change unless they fire Luke Walton

If the Lakers are serious about free agency and landing some of the best players in the league, they’ll need a different coach.

Dealing with LaVar Ball is one thing — and dealing with Lonzo Ball has proven to be a completely different story. Both are giving the Lakers room for concern after the regular season ends, as everything that they say and do will impact whether or not Magic Johnson can fulfill his vision.

The team has done little to calm down comments from LaVar, with every reprimand seeming more like a slap on the wrist than a reality check that the Ball family desperately needs. They cannot afford to move forward if they have to have serious concerns about whether their star point guard will re-sign in the future based solely on the organization signing his brothers.

It sounds bogus, obviously, but it’s where the Lakers are at this point and they’re only digging their own grave.

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So how does Luke Walton factor into this?

It’s clear from what we’ve seen this season that Lonzo is definitely the more reserved type of player, but that won’t hinder him necessarily from being a star. What it will keep him from is gelling completely with his teammates, and replacing Walton gives him a chance to change that.

The reason that firing Walton is necessary is because if the team ever wants to grow based on where Lonzo is at in his game, he needs to be able to play with a fire beneath him. All Walton has done through his comments and actions is give the guard a free pass when it comes to being as passive as he is on the issues with his father.

Ironically, a coaching change away from Walton is something that LaVar Ball has also called for publicly. You would hope that cooler heads would prevail in a situation like this, but there is no doubt that unless the Lakers can take serious, drastic action to save the direction of the franchise, things will only go down from here.

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And Walton is as responsible for it as anybody in the front office you want to point fingers at.