Myths about Rudy T's departure

Myth #1 - The Lakers were severely underperforming under Rudy
The Lakers were 22-19 under Rudy and were floating around the 6th to 8th seed. That is where the Lakers were predicted to be in most pre-season predictions. For example, if you examine ESPN's Power Rankings for the Lakers, they are very consistent with the team starting 14th pre-season, 13th in training camp, and then ranking 11th through 15th throughout the season. The pre-season rankings were based upon Vlade being the Lakers starting center and he has played a total of 37 minutes this season. Also, Malone was predicted to come back mid-season and he hasn't (and won't).

Myth #2 - The Lakers lost their buzz because of their poor performance under Rudy
No, the Lakers lost their buzz because Kobe was injured. No other player on the roster commands the fan interest that Kobe does. Through 27 games, the Lakers' home attendance rate was down only 0.8% from last year's 99.5%. Also, through 27 games the Lakers were #1 for road attendance. Very little fall off attendance from a team with 4 Hall of Famers to a team of Kobe and a bunch of unknowns.

Myth #3 - Dr. Buss and Mitch Kupchak were panicking because of the lack of fan interest
After Magic retired, the Lakers had three seasons where they were hard to watch. The Lakers this year have played better than the those teams and Buss didn't panic then. Given how well the attendance has held up (see Myth #2) and Buss' prior history, I find it hard to belive that he is panicking now.

Myth #4 - Rudy had coached enough games for Dr. Buss and Mitch to evaluate his performance
If you look around at the first year coaches this season, none of them are performing better than Rudy was and most of them are performing much worse. Byron Scott is 8-37, Mike Woodson is 9-35, Mike Montgomery is 12-33, Sam Mitchell is 19-27, Jim O'Brien is 21-24 and Doc Rivers is 22-24, . Yet, none of them have been fired. I think the general rule is that teams give a coach at least a season and a half to show if they can succeed with a team. Rudy hadn't coached anywhere near that.

Myth #5 - Rudy being sick was a concocted story so that the Lakers could hire Phil Jackson
Well, the first hole is that the Lakers haven't hired Phil and aren't certain to do so. Now, let's consider this - Rudy had a $30 million contract from the Lakers and wound up with a $9 million contract. Can you imagine someone giving up $21 million dollars to a team that had fired him? And then lying through his teeth to go along with the cover up? This isn't worth discussing unless someone involved changes their story.

Myth #6 - Rudy was driven to quit by Kobe
I am going to accept that Rudy was telling the truth when he said that he suffered such severe stress in the Lakers coaching position that his immune system tanked and he had been on antibotics continuously for the last month or two. Now, if you say that it took at least of two weeks of severe stress to push his immune system to such a low ebb, that means Rudy has been under severe stress for at least 6 weeks, probably longer. Now, I just can't accept that if Kobe was causing Rudy such severe stress for so long and that it wasn't noticeable. It would show during time outs or before games. Teammates would talk about it. Stories would leak out to the press. None of those things happened. Everything that hit the press prior to Rudy's resigning indicated that Kobe really liked Rudy and enjoyed playing for him.

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