Lakers Coach Apologizes For Telling Fans to Find Another Team To Root For [Video]

Lakers head coach Mike D’Antoni was forced to make an apology last night after he stated that fans should find another team to root for if they are disappointed in the Lakers season. The Lakers lost by double digits last night to the Miami Heat, another in a long string of embarrassing losses.

Laker fans took to Twitter and Facebook yesterday to express their outrage at D’Antoni. After the 117-90 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Monday D’Antoni said in an interview:

“If they’re discouraged, then find another team to root for. We’re not going to give up. Are you kidding me? Discouraged? That’s not even fair to these guys.”

Mike D’Antoni gave a pregame interview yesterday to tell the fans that he was sorry, saying:

“I was an idiot last night. I was out of my mind. I was ticked off. We didn’t play well. I thought it was a game we could’ve won and we didn’t do it. So I said some stuff. That’s me. I just made a mistake.To me, the meaning is this: We have a team that needs to overachieve, we have a lot of injuries and we’re in a tough state right now. We need everybody to be pulling with us. It’s going to take a whole village to get this done. I just said it wrong. It came out wrong because I was agitated. I apologize and we’ll move on. We need everybody to be behind these guys. They’re going to play as hard as they can play.”

Lakers fans got some good news before the game when they learned that Jordan Farmar would be starting after being out with a strained left hamstring for the last ten games. His pregame ultrasound showed that the injury was not going to be an issue going forward. Farmar’s injury has forced the Lakers to play the last ten games without a traditional point guard.

Jordan Farmar will play in the Lakers-Heat game, a nice stocking stuffer after staying sidelined for the past 10 games because of a stained left hamstring. An ultrasound Tuesday showed that his injury fully healed.

Farmar said of his time on the bench:

“I just noticed without somebody taking control, there was no sense of purpose. There was just random basketball they were playing. I understand the philosophy behind it. They don’t want me to get tired. They don’t want my legs to be fatigued. It’s hard at the end of the game. Just play through it. Hopefully it won’t be too big of a problem. We’ll have a dialogue in how I feel and we’ll go from there.””

The Lakers have had an injury plagued season seeing Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash and Steve Blake hit the bench with injuries.

Mike D’Antoni will now press forward with Jordan Farmar starting point guard and hopes that the team will not see any future injuries this season.

Do you think Mike D’Antoni was wrong for telling fans to root for another team?