Scouting Report: What should Lakers fans expect from James Borrego?
Let’s take a look at the more under-the-radar rumored coaching candidate for the Lakers in James Borrego, who appears to be establishing himself as a legitimate option.
The Lakers look to finally be entering the final stages of their coaching search.
After a failed pursuit of Dan Hurley, the team has turned its attention to JJ Redick, who they will reportedly meet with in person for a formal interview this weekend. He isn’t the first candidate to meet with the Lakers, though, as James Borrego did so weeks ago.
Borrego had been seen as an outside candidate, but as more reporting suggests he has a legitimate chance at being named coach, the more it feels like he’s a serious possibility to be the next Lakers head coach.
The Charlotte-to-Los Angeles pipeline has reaped rewards for the Lakers in the past, most notably in recent memory with Malik Monk. The Lakers will hope Borrego has similar success switching coasts as the Lakers have long been in search of a face of the franchise for years to come on the sideline.
Borrego, though, has been a bit of an unknown quantity. While he has head coach experience, the Hornets are hardly the center of the NBA universe and much of his work, even with LaMelo Ball on the roster, went on outside of the scope of NBA and Lakers fans.
In an effort to get a better sense of Borrego’s time in Charlotte, I reached out to James Plowright, site manager for All Hornets, to get some more insight.
Q: What are James Borrego’s best qualities as a head coach?
A: Borrego entered Charlotte preaching defense as the foundation of his coaching philosophy. However, his approach and style suggested he favored more offensively-minded lineups.
Borrego often played small in key moments with forward P.J. Washington at center over more defensively-minded bigs in Bismack Biyombo, Cody Zeller and Mason Plumlee. The Hornets couldn’t grab a rebound for two years, but had an effective enough offense to be competitive. Associate head coach Jay Triano was the mastermind behind Charlotte’s offense and I would give him equal credit to Borrego.
The Hornets had a fluid rotation with Borrego as head coach, changing the rotation and playing time night to night based on match-ups and quality of play. That was a distinct change from his predecessor Steve Clifford, who was set in his ways.
Over Borrego’s two seasons, he experienced huge success with developing young players. Miles Bridges, Devonte Graham, LaMelo Ball, Terry Rozier, Jalen McDaniels and Cody Martin all had career years. A portion of fans grew frustrated at the lack of playing time for lottery picks James Bouknight and Kai Jones. However, two years on that decision appears to have been validated as the correct one.
Q: What are some of his weaknesses?
Borrego sacrificed size and physicality for offense time and time and time again. His play style didn’t translate well to elimination basketball with the Hornets being blown out in both play-in appearances.
After two years of talking about defense, the team was simply not buying in. However, one could argue the roster was not constructed with the defensive players he needed for balanced play. Plumlee and Vernon Carey were never a frontcourt unit that was going to control the paint defensively.
Some attribute Bouknight and Kai Jones’ failure at the NBA level to Borrego’s lack of playing time, hurting their development early. I disagree as Borrego showed several other examples of trusting and developing young players well.
Charlotte moved on from Borrego only nine months after giving him a three-year contract extension and reaching 43 wins. That begs the question of what happened behind the scenes that led to Borrego’s firing. The theory that makes the most sense is he had lost the trust and belief of the players and this must have come across in exit interviews.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.