Category: NBA News Blog

The Lakers are moving quickly toward hiring Phil Jackson as their next coach, with one person in the organization calling it a “95%” chance he will return for a third tour with the team.

The Lakers plan on meeting with Jackson on Saturday morning to make sure he is interested in the job. The unknown 5% in their equation is the chance Jackson doesn’t want to fill the vacancy created by the Friday firing of Mike Brown, either because of health reasons or other unknown issues.

The team realized a slew of things stemming from the 101-77 Lakers’ victory Friday over Golden State, primarily that the players wanted Jackson and fans wanted him too, in case their second-half chants of his name weren’t enough of a tipoff.

— Reported by  Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times

Lakers forward Deven Ebanks was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor DUI in Los Angeles early Friday morning, according to law enforcement sources and booking records.

Ebanks, 23, was pulled over at 2:49 a.m. in the Hollywood area by California Highway Patrol officers and booked at 3:44 a.m.

Ebanks was released later Friday morning after posting $5,000 bail. A post on his Twitter account Thursday afternoon encouraged his followers to celebrate a woman’s birthday Thursday night at Roxbury night club near Hollywood.

Ebanks’ next scheduled court date is Dec. 7, according to booking records.

— Reported by Mike Bresnahan and Andrew Blankstein of the Los Angeles Times

The Lakers have fired Mike Brown as coach after the team’s 1-4 start, according to a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Brown was barely a month into his second season with the team, which struggled badly amid high expectations.

It was unclear who would be his replacement.

It was believed to be the earliest firing of a coach in the team’s history. Del Harris was relieved of his duties 12 games into the 1999 season.

The Lakers were 41-25 in Brown’s first season, losing to Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs.

— Reported by Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times

The Lakers have had a healthy Nash in the lineup for only 1½ of their five games so far thanks to a leg injury, while Howard has acknowledged that he’s still recovering from the back surgery that brought a premature end to his 2011-12 campaign and knocked him out of the London Olympics. Kobe Bryant has also been playing through a foot ailment.

The Lakers are off to the worst start in the Western Conference despite carrying the league’s largest payroll at just over $100 million, which would trigger an estimated luxury-tax bill at season’s end of nearly $30 million.

The team has also been trying to institute a form of the Princeton offense, a system that relies on reads and ball sharing in order to take some of the offensive load off Bryant. The results have been mixed, at best.

— Reported by Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com

An unsuccessful homestand for the Los Angeles Lakers, as they settle into Staples Center for the next six games, would put the job of Lakers coach Mike Brown in immediate jeopardy, according to sources close to the situation.

Sources told ESPN.com that the Lakers, while having publicly expressed support for Brown in the wake of a 1-4 start, have privately grown sufficiently concerned about the state of the team to the point that management is prepared to look seriously at a coaching change at this early juncture if L.A. can’t take advantage of what looks to be multiple winnable games in the upcoming stretch.

The homestand begins Friday night against the banged-up Golden State Warriors, who’ll be without injured center Andrew Bogut and key reserve Brandon Rush, and continues through Nov. 20 with games against Sacramento, San Antonio, Phoenix, Houston and Brooklyn.

The Lakers have had a healthy Steve Nash in the lineup for only 1½ of their five games so far thanks to a leg injury, while fellow newcomer Dwight Howard has acknowledged that he’s still recovering from the back surgery that brought a premature end to his 2011-12 campaign and knocked him out of the London Olympics. Kobe Bryant has also been playing through a foot ailment.

Yet sources maintain that patience in the organization is starting to erode as the wait continues for signs of improvement in the Lakers’ play.

— Reported by Marc Stein of ESPN.com