Wake up. Take a shower. Wonder why Byron Scott is still coaching the Lakers. Go to work. Eat lunch. Think about why Byron Scott still has a job. Go home. Eat dinner. Assemble a working theory about whether Byron Scott helped bury the bodies, or just simply knows where they are. Go to sleep. Dream about Byron Scott getting fired. Wake up and read the Lakers might keep Byron Scott for another year. Call in sick.

A report this week from the Los Angeles Times sent shockwaves through the NBA and the rest of civilized society, revealing that the Lakers are “torn” over whether to retain comically inept head coach Byron Scott for the third and final year of his contract. Scott’s crimes are myriad, but at the top of the list is his baffling abuse of Lakers’ young core: D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, and Jordan Clarkson. His behavior even seems personal in the case of Russell, whom Scott has publicly bashed all season. That’s to say nothing of his contempt for 21st century “analytics” or his aversion to newfangled rules like the three-point shot, which he seems to regard as tantamount to witchcraft.

It’s OK for a great franchise to rebuild with grace. It happens. But the Lakers are getting laughed at. Step one is obvious: Fire Byron Scott. Fire Byron Scott because here are 18 people who can do better tomorrow, if the Lakers just do the inevitable and give one of them the chance. Your move, Jimmy Buss.

Don Nelson

When the Golden State Warriors laid waste to the NBA last season like a raging prairie, fire many spoke of how it vindicated Mike D’Antoni’s fabled—but ringless—“seven seconds or less” style of up-tempo play with the Nash-era Phoenix suns. But, with all due respect to D’Antoni, who remains an excellent coach, it was Don Nelson who got there first. The relentless small-ball attack, the spread floor, every player an offensive weapon, lineups designed to force defenses into choosing death by hemlock or hammer... In Dallas, he risked his reputation on Steve Nash, who was Canadian before it was cool, and drafted a doofy lumbering German named Dirk Nowitzki. Then in Golden State, he not only drafted Steph Curry but unleashed him on the league, letting him to lead and play through rookie mistakes. The case against Don Nelson: he’s 75, doesn’t seem to ever want to coach again, and would have no idea what to do with Julius Randle. Then again, Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram plus a hundred billion dollars might convince him to give it one last try.

Scott Brooks

Scott Brooks led the Oklahoma City Thunder to a Finals appearance and yet never managed to shed the “what the fuck am I doing here” expression plastered on his anodyne features. There was a reason for this, as he was almost certainly muttering those very words under his breath. Would the Lakers hire him based on his “I promise I would play D’Angelo Russell thirty minutes a game and never be overtly cruel to him” pitch? Probably not, but Brooks can play the development card and claim he had something to do with how transcendent Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook have become, and that his presence might help lure one or the other them to Los Angeles. That would take a lot of chutzpah, but the Lakers are suckers for chutzpah, and on the plus side, Scott Brooks isn’t Byron Scott.

Mark Jackson

Mark Jackson lurks behind the announcing booth, timing his revenge. Say what you want about Jackson—preferably whispered and off the record—but he instilled defensive principles with the Warriors and changed the culture of the team, plus his players were loyal to him to the end (except for Andrew Bogut, whose open antipathy for Jackson was mitigated by the Bogut’s open antipathy for everything). All that being said: the primary reason to hire Mark Jackson is to piss off the Warriors. Climb right back into the river’s seat of that particular I-5 rivalry and play the role of the pissy insurgent taking on the super-power with psychological warfare.