Coaching Staff

Joey Ramirez

Five years ago, Will Scott graduated from Indiana University. Now, after working in the D-League and WNBA, he will serve as the video coordinator for the Lakers.

Recently promoted, Scott is already a familiar face for the Lakers, whom he has assisted with filmwork since 2011 when he joined the Los Angeles D-Fenders right out of college.

Helping out both clubs led to earning the role of assistant coach/video coordinator for the D-Fenders last year. He provided a variety of services, including advance scouting and on-court player development for the D-Fenders, who fell just one game short of winning the D-League championship.

“Coming out of college to the D-League was such a great transition,” Scott said. “You just see so much from coaches’ meetings to being in the locker room and team meetings and film sessions and on the court. You just learn how a team works.”

Scott’s ability to handle varying responsibilities called back to his time at Indiana where, from 2009-11, he acted as a student manager for the Hoosiers basketball team under head coach Tom Crean.

While earning a B.S. in sports marketing and management, Scott helped the program with everything from drills and player development to data collection and videowork.

“Being a manager at Indiana was kind of a do-everything sort of thing,” Scott said. “So that’s kind of how I operate, and a lot of great people have come out of that IU program.”

Having gained experience at the NCAA, D-League and NBA levels, Scott completed the cycle by becoming the video coordinator for the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks in 2014 and 2015.

With the D-League and NBA offseason coinciding with the WNBA regular season, Scott was able to spend his summers helping the Sparks, including on the court.

“That was awesome,” Scott said. “A lot of fun playing in practice with them. I can hold my own a little better there than against these big guys (on the Lakers), but that’s not saying much because they still kicked my butt every day.”

Now focused solely on the Lakers, Scott plans to keep his do-it-all mentality and help out in whichever ways he can.

As video coordinator, his attention will be spent mostly on film but versatility remains his trademark, as he isn’t afraid to get out on the floor with those big guys.

“I just want to be the support for this team and the coaches,” Scott said. “No matter what they need, whether it’s video or making sure the court’s clean or rebounding or whatever it is — I want the coaches to be able to focus on coaching and the players to be able to focus on playing.”

By giving what he can to the team, Scott in turn will receive lessons from the men he grew up cheering for.

The Agoura Hills native rooted for the Lakers through their championship years in the early and late 2000s. L.A.’s roster at the time featured two familiar faces, as Luke Walton and Brian Shaw won rings with the purple and gold before pursuing their coaching careers.

“As a young guy, it’s great and you just soak it in,” Scott said. “You soak it in from Luke. You soak it in from B. Shaw — those guys who have been doing it forever and have worked for the best of the best.”

Meet The Staff: Jesse Mermuys | Brian Keefe | Theo Robertson | Jud Buechler | Will Scott

meet-the-staff-will-scott

Meet the Staff: Will Scott

Fourteen years after retiring from basketball, Jud Buechler has his first coaching gig in the NBA.

The 48-year-old last played with Orlando in 2002 before turning his full attention over to his two daughters, whom he raised in his native San Diego.

Buechler — a three-time NBA champion — put all of his effort into being there for Reily and Brynn, which meant volunteering twice a week when they were in elementary school. And while he wasn’t coaching in the NBA at this time, he was calling the plays for his girls’ soccer, basketball and volleyball teams.

That last sport is especially important to Jud, who was an All-American volleyball player at the University of Arizona, where he met his wife, Lindsey — a setter on the women’s team.

Now, Reily is the one burying kills for UCLA women’s volleyball, while Brynn has followed in her parents’ path to U of A.

With his nest empty, Jud felt the urge to get back on the hardwood.

Fortunately, his good friend, Luke Walton, took over as head coach of the Lakers this summer and saw Buechler’s energy and experience as a worthy addition to the coaching staff.

Tasked with player development, Buechler plans to draw from lessons learned over a dozen seasons, including during the second three-peat of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.

“I’m just going to use my experience as a player,” Buechler said. “I played 12 years in the NBA and was on some really bad teams and probably the greatest team ever with the Bulls. I’ve won 23 games, I’ve won 72. So I think I have the experience and know what it takes both on the court and off the court — what the locker room should feel like in a winning situation.”

Buechler himself will certainly contribute to that environment through his natural positivity.

A 6-foot-6 tower of energy, Buechler fits perfectly into Walton’s vision for making the practice court a feel-good place where players want to come to work.

“I’ve been told I’m the most positive person on the planet,” Buechler said, beaming. “I don’t know if I am or not, but I think positive energy’s huge, especially with a young group of guys. We’re not going to win every game, and losing is really tough on young players and on teams in this league. So we just need to stay the course, (think) more big picture and enjoy the process of getting better.”

As somebody who has played on seven different NBA teams, Buechler has seen plenty of different coaching styles, and he likes the approach that Walton has chosen to take.

“I think Luke’s big vision with all the coaches has been: Everyone has a big voice in all that we’re doing,” Buechler said. “I’ve heard of other situations where it’s kind of just the head coach doing all the talking … but Luke’s been great with giving everybody a voice.”

Sometimes, however, a voice can only do so much.

Many of the coaches on Walton’s staff are still spry enough to get on the court and teach the players through action. Buechler is sure to point out that Walton, 36, is one of the many willing to step on the wood for a lesson.

“How many head coaches are out there playing and not only telling the guys, ‘This is how I want it done,’ but actually getting out there and playing and showing them just how it’s done,” Buechler said of the league’s youngest head coach.

Buechler grew up a Lakers fan but never made his way to Los Angeles during his playing career.

Now, he considers his job “a dream come true” and is excited about the prospect of helping to shape the team’s future.

And while the overwhelming majority of that positivity is just him being his natural self, he also feels it spreading around as the staff and players get ready to start the 2016-17 season.

“I’ve seen it right away: These guys are looking Luke in the eye and believing everything about his philosophy and what he’s bringing to the team,” Buechler said. “It’s huge to have a young, vibrant coach like that whose obviously had success through his career and just won a championship two years ago.”

meet-the-staff-jud-buechler

Meet the Staff: Jud Buechler

Before heading up to Las Vegas, Luke Walton joked with his coaches that Summer League would be just as competitive for the staff as it would be for the players, saying that any coach who lost a game would be replaced for the next contest.

Jesse Mermuys led the Lakers to a 3-0 start, but the team faltered in tournament play, losing to Cleveland on July 14. With Los Angeles' consolation game the following day, Walton went to dinner with Mermuys and 29-year-old Theo Robertson, where he offered the now-player development coach a chance to lead the Lakers.

Robertson — who spent the last two years alongside Walton at Golden State as a video coordinator and video intern — seized the opportunity. In his first shot as a head coach, the Lakers stayed competitive with Utah all game before losing, 92-88.

But the experience wasn't lost on Robertson.

“It really speaks to both Luke and Jesse — just their willingness extend me that opportunity to really grow and be in that seat, which is completely different,” Robertson said. “Get my feet wet and lead that group. ... From a competitive standpoint, I had a blast doing it. Just looking forward to another opportunity to do so."

In the meantime, Robertson will trade in the clipboard for some sneakers, as he is tasked with "on-court skills development" for the Lakers.

Keeping up with L.A.'s young roster will be a challenge, but certainly isn't a deal-breaker for Robertson, who ended his five-year collegiate career at California in 2010.

As a senior, Robertson was named Second Team All-Pac-12, led the league in 3-point percentage (44.0) and helped the Golden Bears to their first conference title in 50 years.

He also left with the school's all-time best career 3-point clip (45.3), which has him saying, "I'm taking the title," in a hypothetical shootout among the Lakers coaching staff, which includes former sharpshooters like Jud Buechler, Brian Shaw and Brian Keefe.

Cal came back into Robertson's life in 2012, as he spent two years as a graduate manager and director of operations for the program. From there, he found himself at the center of basketball, becoming a video intern for the Warriors.

In his first season, Golden State ended a 40-year championship drought, reminiscent of his Bears breaking their conference title streak. For a man who was born in Pittsburg, Calif., and went to De La Salle High, it was something of a basketball renaissance for his Bay Area squads.

"It was cool to have that level of pride around your teams," Robertson said. "I don’t know if it’s quite on the level of even being in L.A. so far — everywhere you go it’s like people bleeding purple and gold. You go to Summer League and our games are sold out, which I thought was crazy.”

The next season saw the Warriors finish the regular season with a record 73-9 mark. Though the team didn't end up winning the championship, Robertson still absorbed plenty of lessons from Golden State.

“You take bits and pieces from everybody, and I think you’d be a fool not to,” Robertson said. “You’re watching the way Steph (Curry) works out. You’re learning from a holistic perspective on life from guys like Andre (Iguodala) and Shaun (Livingston).”

In particular, he learned from working with All-Star forward Draymond Green.

“It’s really hard to say one person, but I would probably say Draymond, just because of the way he sees the game, particularly from a defensive perspective,” Robertson said. “Then just the competitive fire that he brings on a nightly basis. I found myself probably gravitating toward him, picking his brain, probably a little bit more as others.”

Having spent two years with the NBA's most successful team at the moment, Robertson hopes to be able to rub a bit of that off on the Lakers.

“Some of our key objectives are to just teach them how to play basketball the right way — or at least the way we see it and the way we feel it should be played,” Robertson said. “And that’s ball movement, player movement — any time you’re standing, that’s the only time you’re doing something wrong.”

For Robertson, this teaching means getting out on the floor with the guys and, if need be, jawing at them a bit.

“I go back and forth with all these guys,” Robertson said. “Ever since I got out there, they’ve been begging me to get back on the court, and I’m just like, ‘Man, you guys are 19 and I’m gonna be 30 this year and I’ve had three hip surgeries. I can’t do it like that.’ I wouldn’t even pretend to think I can. It’s been fun and that’s the fun part about it: when you get out there and mix it up and talk a little trash now and then.”

meet-the-staff-theo-robertson

Meet the Staff: Theo Robertson

Brian Keefe was hired as a player-development assistant for the Seattle SuperSonics in late August 2007 — just two months after they had drafted a 20-year-old named Kevin Durant.

“I was with him when he first started,” said Keefe, now an assistant with the Lakers. “He was drafted when I was first there, so we were there together a long time. I worked with him a lot. (Our relationship) developed over time. I probably learned a lot more from him than he learned from me.”

After a 20-62 season, the team left for Oklahoma City the next year and drafted another future superstar, Russell Westbrook.

That first season in OKC ended with a 23-59 record, but the team drafted yet another franchise player in James Harden and subsequently made the playoffs.

Now on another team building its young core, Keefe knows the growing pains that are bound to happen — as well as the potential rewards waiting in the future.

“We started off a little slow, didn’t have a lot of success right away,” Keefe said. “Those guys kind of created an organization, because it was really a new organization when it went to Oklahoma City. They really put an imprint on the whole thing. … Obviously it was an unbelievable experience. We had a lot of success, a lot of deep playoff runs.”

Of course, since Keefe started in Oklahoma City, Harden was traded to Houston and Durant left for Golden State. But the coach left his mark on the players while working with the organization from 2007-14, including when he called out Durant after the Thunder lost three straight home games in 2014.

"That was probably one of the most realest conversations I've had with a coach, ever," Durant told NBA.com’s David Aldridge. "He let me know how bad I was -- my body language, my attitude. I just decided to look at myself and self-evaluate. And he was right. I had to change how I was thinking, how I was acting toward my teammates. Everything.”

Perhaps that willingness to speak his mind stems from his NBA coaching roots, as he started as a video coordinator under Gregg Popovich.

Keefe had previously worked as a college assistant at South Florida (2000-01) and Bryant (’01-05), but his first NBA role came in San Antonio, where he even won a ring for the Spurs’ 2007 championship in his second season.

“That was a blessing to be able to start your career at a place to see how it really should be done,” Keefe said. “Obviously starting with R.C. (Buford) and Pop and those guys — but just how to do things the right way and being around all those great players. You just feel like a kid in the candy store trying to learn as much as you could. It was a fantastic environment for a young coach.”

From there, he joined the Thunder for the next seven years before spending the last two seasons with New York.

A 1996 Second Team All-Big West selection and captain of the UC Irvine basketball team, Keefe is now happy to be back in Southern California.

Part of that has to do with the opportunity to work under head coach Luke Walton.

Though Keefe didn’t have an especially close relationship to Walton prior to joining the Lakers, he nonetheless testifies to the path that the first-year head coach is carving for the team.

“He has a great presence,” Keefe said. “He has a great way of working with the guys and relating to them. He knows what he wants to do, how he wants to go about it. He knows how to create a good environment to improve.”

meet-the-staff-brian-keefe

Meet the Staff: Brian Keefe

One was a First Team All-Pac-10 honoree at the University of Arizona and the other was playing at local Glendale Community College. But Luke Walton and Jesse Mermuys bonded through offseason hoops during their college days, and now they are working together to push the Lakers into the future.

As one of the assistants on Walton’s staff, Mermuys has a hand in shaping the culture of the team, which has been defined, to this point, by its positivity.

“When you’re around Luke, you’re happy,” Mermuys said. “You’re in a good mood. You just can’t help feeding off of his energy and his vibe. He has an unbelievable knack for just making you feel good. He keeps things fun all the time.

“And I think he wanted to establish a culture where we’re working at such a high rate and we’re trying to outwork every other team, but we’re doing it and enjoying it and it’s fun to do it and we want to do it.”

The goal for this season, of course, is to develop the Lakers’ young core of talent, including D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson, Julius Randle and Brandon Ingram.

For Mermuys, who radiates positivity both on and off the court, there is just as much of an opportunity to learn from these players as there is to coach them.

“I think when you have that mentality and an appreciation for how amazing these guys are mentally and physically, how could you not be positive?” Mermuys asks. “I get to work with D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle — those are big-time talents that I get to have the opportunity to work with, coach and mentor on a daily basis. How could you not be positive? I don’t know.”

Indeed, Mermuys’ encouraging nature was on full display at the Las Vegas Summer League where, as head coach, he led the Lakers to a 3-0 start before falling in the tournament rounds.

While in Vegas and since returning to Los Angeles, Mermuys has worked extensively with all the young players, including Russell, whom he sees as a “special kid.”

“He has some maturity, obviously, that he’s going to have to grow and come up in this league,” Mermuys said. “But he’s so intelligent and he’s smart and he’s charismatic and he’s a good dude who really wants it.

“You can tell when you talk to him and are around him how hungry he is. That drive — with his size and talent — that is the key to success. If you’re willing to put in the work and you have that burning desire to be great, the sky’s the limit in this league. I’m just super excited to even be a part of that process.”

The key to this year will be to bring that potential out of Russell and co., and Mermuys has an ideal player-development background.

Last year, he was the first head coach of the D-League franchise, Raptors 905. Under Mermuys’ watch, not only did 905 break the league’s expansion wins record with a 15-23 mark, but several players went on to play in the NBA that very year.

Greg Smith and Axel Toupane were called up to Minnesota and Denver, respectively, while Toronto routinely sent Norman Powell, Anthony Bennett, Delon Wright, Lucas Nougera and Bruno Caboclo to 905 for playing time and growth.

“From day one, it was mandated to make sure development was first,” Mermuys said. “Obviously everyone wants to win and it’s a competitive, first-class organization. But we were really trying to establish a culture and program.

The Tucson native has always wanted to be a head coach in the NBA, and he started his journey toward that goal back in 2001 as an assistant at Salpointe Catholic High, his alma mater.

Three years later, he began a string of roles — including assistant coach, director of basketball operations and video coordinator — at Pima Community College, New Mexico State, Southern Utah University and the University of Arizona.

In 2008, that parlayed into an assistant gig with the Denver Nuggets, who he stayed with for four years. He then spent the next season with the Houston Rockets before joining the Raptors as an assistant in 2013.

After all these experiences, he’s now trying to pass some lessons along in Los Angeles.

Mermuys admits that he is surprised by how quickly the young Lakers have bought into the culture that the coaching staff is implementing.

For that, he gives the credit, once agin, to Walton.

“That guy is a special guy,” Mermuys said. “When you think things are going to be really hard with trying to get them to buy in, he has a way somehow of making things work faster and better than anybody else. I don’t know how he does it. He’s got magic dust. I don’t know if big Bill Walton sprinkled him with something special, because he is an amazing dude.

“These guys, literally from day one, have just been all in. We haven’t had to fight and scrap and sell them on anything. They’re waiting at the door for instruction and trying to do everything that we’re asking them to do.”

Coaching Staff

Meet the Staff: Will Scott

Meet the Staff: Jud Buechler

Meet the Staff: Theo Robertson

Meet the Staff: Brian Keefe

Meet the Staff: Jesse Mermuys