Go down, Miss Moses, there’s nothing you can sayIt’s just ol’ Luke, and Luke’s waiting on the Judgment Day



— Robbie Robertson, “The Weight”



It wasn’t supposed to be this way.



When the Lakers tabbed Luke Walton as their head coach in the summer of 2016, the hire served as a de facto mission statement for the type of organization the Lakers aspired to be. Not one that cycled through coaches every few seasons — he was the fourth new hire in six seasons — but one that would establish stability on the bench.



That was important to Jeanie Buss, whose perspective on coaches had been shaped by Phil Jackson. The Lakers owner saw Walton as the franchise’s new center of gravity in a post-Kobe Bryant world. She liked to refute claims that the Lakers could not attract star free agents by pointing to Walton, who left his role as a top assistant at Golden State to take over the Lakers...