Byron Scott appears to threaten fan on Instagram, blames hacker
Los Angeles Lakers head coach Byron Scott is well known for saying things that other coaches probably wouldn’t mention in public. Apart from regular criticism of young players prone to predictable mistakes and retrograde considerations of what makes for quality strategy in the 21st century, Scott has gone so far as to suggest his players would shoot him in the back in a foxhole scenario and allowed Kobe Bryant the privilege to take all the bad shots he wants. It has not come as much of a surprise that the Lakers’ attempt to juggle the end of Kobe’s career and a rebuilding effort has not gone very smoothly under Scott’s watch.
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A bizarre social media incident last week indicated (for a time, at least) that Scott’s capacity for saying the wrong thing extends away from his job, as well. Scott posted this video of himself training to Instagram roughly a week ago:
But the real fight came in the comments, where Scott’s official account appeared to welcome a threat from an unruly follower. The comments have since been deleted, but you can look at them below (via EOB):
Although Scott didn’t start the interaction with “yothiskobe” (who, let’s be honest, should probably be happy Scott wants to give the ball to Kobe so much), the league isn’t exactly thrilled when coaches show any interest in fighting a fan. It’s kind of looked down upon.
Never fear, though, because Scott says he didn’t write those comments. It was a hacker!
Scott isn’t lying — his Instagram account is mostly full of very positive photos. We should probably take him at his word and accept that this hacker decided to post two comments in a recent photo rather than anything more nefarious.
The Lakers coach continued to clear his name before Tuesday night’s game against the Dallas Mavericks. He just didn’t do the best job of it:
The 2015-16 Lakers season continues apace.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
