Paper doesn’t win championships for us: LA Lakers assistant coach Phil Handy

The Los Angeles Lakers have some big names in their team. The likes of LeBron James and Anthony Davis will be joined by triple-double king Russell Westbrook. Thus, it is a strong team which the Lakers have for the next season of the NBA and it is certainly a potent team on paper.

However, LA Lakers assistant coach Phil Handy is well aware that the championship is not on paper and his team will need to come up with a collective effort to regain the NBA ring. In fact, the Lakers were troubled by injury woes in the previous season as James and Davis had struggled with their respective injuries. Both of these talismen had also lacked support from the other players.

Handy doesn’t want to take things for granted and as he has the experience of 11 years in the league, he knows what it takes to go all the way in the NBA.

Handy said while talking to former player Eddie Johnson and ESPN’s Amin Elhassan, “I’ve been coaching in the league 11 years, not a long time, but I’ve had a lot of experience with great players,” Handy said. “And I just think this: paper doesn’t win championships for us. Those names that are on that paper are some phenomenal names.”

The LA Lakers assistant coach added that the team will need to come up with a collective effort and the players will need to get along with each other before the next season kicks off.

“So we got to do our work,” Handy said. “Frank is going to do a great job of leading the charge. But we’ve got to do our work in making sure we jell. Do we fit? These guys, they’ve got to figure out ways to play with each other and sacrifice and let their names take over.”

The Lakers have a potent team on paper but Handy feels a lot of work is to be done by the players to win the championship and he urged them to build a camaraderie and rhythm for the next season.

“So, you look at that piece of paper and say, ‘Hey, man, Lakers are loaded. Automatic championship.’ No, man, we got a lot of work to do in terms of just jelling, finding our rhythm and being able to be cohesive as a unit.”

“I like what we’ve done. I’m really excited about it. But, you know, there’s a lot of work ahead of us.”