LA Lakers Rumors: Luke Walton May Hire Brian Shaw as Assistant Coach

NBA roundups freshly churned out from the rumor mill suggest that Brian Shaw might just get a chance at redeeming his coaching value to NBA teams after a disastrous coaching gig with the Denver Nuggets a year ago.

Recently, reports point to the possibility of former Lakers point guard going back to Los Angeles again as assistant coach following Luke Walton's recent acceptance of the franchise's job offer as head coach.

Shaw is quite familiar with the Lakers environment serving the team both as a player and as assistant coach during the good old championship years under Phil 'Zen Master' Jackson. It seems logical for Walton to get the right people in his coaching staff whom he can perfect work well.

"New head coach Luke Walton is starting to construct his coaching staff, and the most prominent on his short list of candidates is Brian Shaw," said Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical as quoted in a Yahoo News report. The former Denver Nuggets coach played for the Lakers from 1999 to 2003 and was assistant coach from 2003 to 2012.

After Jackson's departure from the Lakers in 2011, Shaw was touted to replace the legendary coach, who won 11 NBA championships to his name (5 with Lakers and 6 with Chicago). But at that time, owner Jim Buss wanted to purge Jackson loyalists off the roster, Lakers Nation reported.

Walton and Shaw are both Jackson acolytes who are pretty much familiar with the legendary coach's gameplay that made Lakers a very formidable organization racing past other teams to create a dynasty in the league. With Shaw spending quality time with Walton in LA is indicative of how the roster will start to look like once the former's purported hiring by the Lakers will be confirmed.

In the post-Kobe era and two seasons of record worst performance, Walton faces a challenging task of rebuilding a team with a young roster. To do that, he would need to assemble a coaching staff that is up to the task.

"Rebuilding the Los Angeles Lakers is going to be quite the task. Luke Walton is going to need as much help as he can get to make that happen. Winning with the Lakers won't be as easy as winning a record amount of games with the Golden State Warriors," wrote Jack Windham of the Inquisitr.

"There's no Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green in southern California. Walton will have his work cut out for him, and he's going to need Brian Shaw to be on the top of his game to make his goals come true."