Former NBA player Rasheed Wallace, who was mostly known for his time with the Detroit Pistons where he won an NBA championship in 2004, has agreed to join the Los Angeles Lakers coaching staff as an assistant coach, according to The Athletic.
As a coach, Wallace was an assistant coach for the Detroit Pistons for one season during the 2013-2014 NBA season. After a five-year window in between coaching, he then was head coach at Charles E. Jordan High School in Durham, North Carolina for two seasons from 2019 to 2021.
His most recent coaching stint was with Penny Hardaway and the University of Memphis for just the 2021-2022 college season.
Wallace is now reunited with his former Detroit Pistons teammate Darvin Ham, who was hired as the head coach two weeks ago,
While his coaching career has not been as eventful, as a player, Wallace had a reputation for being the sworn enemy of all NBA referees. He’s third all-time in technical fouls and he even got thrown out of a game for just looking at a ref.
He was drafted by the then Washington Bullets with the fourth overall pick in the 1995 NBA Draft after two years at the University of North Carolina. Throughout his NBA career, he played for the Portland Trailblazers, Atlanta Hawks, Detroit Piston, Boston Celtics and the New York Knicks.
He was a four-time all-star as a player.
Now as the newest assistant for the Lakers, Wallace is tasked with helping the team return to the postseason after missing it with a 33-49 record--even though they had a roster with LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook on the team.
The jokes on social media have already started because of Wallace’s reputation as a player. But we’ll see if he along with Ham can help this team be successful once again.