Sad News: Lakers owner Jeanie Buss goes bankrupt due to
The clock is ticking on the prime of LeBron James’ career. It would be a shame to waste it on front-office disarray.
Jeanie Buss, the controlling owner of the Los Angeles Lakers since 2013, has reached a pivotal point in her tenure as owner and chief decision-maker of the fabled franchise.
Her next decision will be a defining one for her and the organization. Who does she hire to run basketball operations?
The biggest lesson she can take from the Magic Johnson debacle that ended with his abrupt and unexpected resignation Tuesday is this: the Lakers are no longer a family business in the way it was when her father, the late Jerry Buss, owned and ran the team.
Jeanie was influenced by the allure of the Showtime Lakers and the success of Jerry West, Pat Riley, Magic and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and then later with Phil Jackson, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and Mitch Kupchak and the Lakers’ 16 NBA championships. She and Jackson were in a relationship for seven years.
Hiring Magic as president of basketball operations, and former agent Rob Pelinka, who used to represent Bryant, as general manager, were mistakes.
She needs to go outside the Lakers family and hire a front-office executive who knows how to operate in today’s NBA, someone who understands the modern NBA and all that goes into winning. In the NBA of 2019, the Lakers allure isn’t enough. The championships and prestige certainly help, but the Lakers need someone who can recruit in free agency and possesses the kind of trust required to make impact trades.
That wasn’t Johnson, and it may not be Pelinka, either.
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Johnson isn’t cut out for this line of work, not in a permanent role with an NBA team. He was going to fire coach Luke Walton.
“I would have to affect someone’s livelihood and their life. And I thought about that,” Johnson said Tuesday.
He couldn’t bring himself to do it.
