Patience is a virtue, an adage that Brian Shaw is all too familiar with.
He waited twelve years into his NBA career before he won his first NBA Championship with the Lakers. He waded through the rough waters of Kobe and Shaq’s rifts and studied patience under Phil Jackson’s tutelage.
Brian Shaw has spent a lot of time patiently waiting for his moment and today, it appears patience is ready to reward him.
Today, Shaw became the head coach for a new NBA G League team. This team will be comprised of recent high school graduates opting to take the G League path to the NBA.
While it is his first time coaching in the G League, Shaw is no stranger to the role of coach. After the Lakers’ three-peat from ’00-’02, he swapped a player’s jersey for a coach’s suit right next to Phil Jackson. In 2011, he became an assistant coach under Frank Vogel with the Indiana Pacers.
In 2015, he was fired as the head coach of the Denver Nuggets after a season and a half of sub-.500 basketball. Rather than run from his past experiences, he looks to use them as tools to learn from and dictate how he will coach in the future.
“In my short stint as a head coach in the NBA, it taught me patience,” Shaw said. “At one point I used to draw a line in the sand and be like, ‘this is the way it is.’ But we live in a different world now, where you have to be a little more sensitive. I’m constantly learning and applying what I’ve learned, so patience is another adjective that I would use to describe how I would have to be as well.”
On mentoring young athletes, Shaw looks forward to guiding aspiring NBA basketball players to achieving their ultimate dream. He acknowledges the road will not be easy, but the idea of developing young talent and fielding a team of the NBA’s future was a breath of fresh air.
The new team has no set location yet, although Los Angeles is under consideration. Regardless of where the team settles down, Shaw will be there—ready to take seize his moment in a new day.
