Luke Walton‘s proverbial hot seat as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers began warming up the moment LeBron James signed as free agent this summer. For the first time, he had to deal with legitimate expectations for a Lakers team that had none in his prior two seasons.
At the beginning of this year, it looked as if he was managing the new expectations relatively well, and had the Lakers at 20-14, beating the juggernaut Golden State Warriors on Christmas day.
However, it has been all downhill from that point, and a lot of that can be blamed on the injury bug biting nearly the whole roster, including James on Christmas.