Luke Walton: 'I Fully Expect' to Be Lakers HC for 2019-20 Season Despite Rumors

Luke Walton expressed confidence that he'll be back as the Los Angeles Lakers' head coach next season in an interview with Bill Oram of The Athletic published Wednesday.

"I fully expect to be coaching this team again next year," Walton told Oram.

The 33-41 Lakers will miss the playoffs for the sixth straight campaign despite adding four-time NBA MVP LeBron James in the offseason.

Naturally, there will be changes, and Marc Stein of the New York Times reported in early March that "the prevailing assumption in league coaching circles remains that Walton will almost certainly be dismissed after the season."

Oram also wrote that "[Lakers president of basketball operations Magic Johnson] is believed to want a coach of his choosing, rather than Walton, whom he inherited from the previous Lakers front office, while James' camp has not-so-quietly pushed for a change as well."

Ex-Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak hired Walton in 2016, and Johnson took over for Kupchak in 2017. The Lakers have gone 94-144 under Walton's command.

Still, the 38-year-old is not concerned, at least publicly:

"I just view it as outside noise unless someone from within tells me that that happened. Unless someone from within our group is telling me that, I just view it like all the other things we've gone through as a team this year. Those are things that I don't have the time to worry about. I've got more important things to do like getting the team better and doing my job."

Walton has endured a difficult road as the Lakers head coach, to the point where it's hard fathoming many people finding much more success in L.A.

After one season, Los Angeles made a seismic front-office change, bringing in Johnson and general manager Rob Pelinka.

The Lakers also brought in a host of young talent led by Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball. Those two have much potential as top-two overall draft picks, but naturally there have been growing pains along the way as the team has endured losing seasons during their respective tenures.

Most notably, however, the quartet of Kyle Kuzma, James, Ball and Ingram played together for just 23 games because of injuries this season. The team went 15-8 during that span and 18-33 otherwise.

That's just terrible luck for the players and shouldn't be on Walton, as he can only do so much when the team's best talent is forced to the sidelines.

Still, there's intense pressure to make the Lakers a winning franchise again, especially with James in the mix. The signs point to Walton being shown the door, even if it isn't entirely fair.