We all remember the good old days of Mitch Kupchak, his glassy eyed stare and self proclaimed basketball expert Jim Buss.
Those seemed like the bad old times when they were happening and for good reason-they were the worsts of times...or seemed back then. After one failed move after another with their ridiculous win one more with Kobe design the team hit historic all time lows.
When Jeanie Buss pulled the coupe to oust Mitch and her brother no one was happier than I. Those who read me knew I railed against Mitch for years, long before it became fashionable. He had been living on Jerry's Wests moves his whole career and at the end the team had been carried by Kobe, another West acquisition.
I'm not going to go over all the bad moves Mitch made, you all know them.
While I was happy Jeanie pulled that long overdue move but there were two things that concerned me: Jeanie herself and the people she installed to replace Mitch-Magic and Pelinka.
Let's look a Jeanie first. She was part and parcel of the Mitch-Jim regime and never voiced concerns of about their fatal mistake with the win one more with Kobe philosophy when it was so very apparent there would be no more with him, that the time to scrap the team and rebuild was totally in evidence with the playoff losses to OKC and Dallas. By that point Kobe was an aging player and obviously no longer the top force in the league, he had been supplanted by younger, better players. The years of toll on his body and his age had done the inevitable as it does to all players.
Yet Jeanie was all in with disastrous path that led to this teams first ruination. So much so that when the abortive mess of Howard's and Nash's first year ended she was a proponent of the great billboard caper to keep Howard, a player who never wanted to come here to begin with evidenced clearly by his refusal to sign an extension.
Jeanie was a proponent for bringing the Mummy, Phil Jackson back to LA as a GM. You know, the same Jackson who ran the Knicks into the ground and only liked to work half days. Oh yeah, and he was her lover too.
When all this fell apart Jeanie said in an interview, "My father ran the team all those years and I have to learn from him."
What? I almost fell over when I read that remark. Jeanie was woman in late middle age and she was speaking like she was a teenager. Jeanie, you had thirty years to learn from your father, now he's dead. It's too late.
Her remark reminded me of the scene and very stupid line in the Godfather part III where Don Altobello tells Michael Corleone, "You have much to learn from your father." Um, the Godfather had been dead for decades, Micheal was a man in his sixties, if he didn't learn from his father while he was alive how was he going to learn from a dead man?
Unlike Jeanie, Michael had indeed learned the family business very well from his father, while he was alive.
Then you had Magic and why, like with Jeanie, I expressed my concern here about him. Unlike many, Magic actually left a long, wide clear trail of his thoughts and ideas on Twitter.
And what I read over the years did not instill me with confidence. He too fully supported the moves Mitch had made, in fact he gushed and burbled about them like a kid, his excitement so very evident. And he loved the Howard/Nash deal, said so with his own hand for all to read, until it proved a Lakers nightmare, then suddenly he criticized it, long after the fact.
And he did this over and over. He would love a move, then hate it when it didn't work out.
And in doing this he reminded me of a kid, say a twelve year old fan, all emotion and knee jerk reaction, no adult calculation, no thought, no insight or long range planning or perspective at all. Just a child seeing and adoring and wanting the next bright shiny object or toy.
And that is exactly what he has turned out to be. He operates like a young fan, a kid who has suddenly been given a team, a toy to play with: The Lakers. And what does this child want? The next shiny toy. You know: Lebron, George, Leonard, Davis, Durant.
And with this laundry list of expensive toys he wished to purchase he had to clear cap space and contracts, and players with names that didn't excite or interest him, not big stars you know. Their names: Russell, Randle, Zubac, Thomas Bryant.
Anyone want those players back? Anyone wonder if the team would have been so much better this year with them? Think we might have made the playoffs? Would the team have actually been fun to watch this year? Would we have a future to look forward, players to build around instead of wasting away with aging Lebron?
I read an article the other day that said Jerry West and other GM's and personal men around the league were laughing at the Lakers trading Zubac away for what they got.
Yeah, I believe that. But you know, I wasn't laughing, I felt like crying, just as I did with Randle and Russell and Thomas. The saddest part is apparently the Lakers coaching staff lobbied to keep those players but were overruled by Jeanie, Magic and Pelinka.
And speaking of Pelinka. He looks like Rob Lowe overdosed on Vicodin, tanning beds and plastic surgery. He never gets that stupid, plastic grin off his face. Why is he smiling so much? Is Earv teaching him how to smile? It can't possible be because of the job he has done, could it? Maybe because he knows he is getting mad coin and prestige for a job he was not prepared for and had no right being offered or assuming. Who wouldn't smile if some idiots handed them all that? Hell, you wouldn't stop smiling. You know, like Pelinka.
And what was his qualification? Well, when he got that job they said he was a great judge of talent. Really? But when I read his bio it was as Kobe's agent....and I wondered then, what makes him such a great judge of talent? Where did he scout at, for what team? What terrific roster did he help build and for which team? I just didn't see where he did that for anyone.
So how is he a great judge of talent, where did that reputation come from? Maybe when he and his other rich friends sit around guzzling cocktails he would point out some good NBA player and say, "Oh yeah, I loved him in college." And his friends would nod and think, "Wow good old Pelinks! He really knows his stuff!"
Is that how he got that reputation?
And so here we are now. The kids are running the store and this is the result. Yep, Mitch and Jim were bad but this is the nadir, because this time around we had good young talent on the team and so much of it was jettisoned to pursue a win one with an aging Lebron agenda.
Sound familiar? Remind you of something not that long ago?
And what is even scarier is this: For the problem to rectified, Magic, the most beloved, iconic Laker of all time will either have to step down or be fired. Pelinka would also have to be shown the door at the same time. Can you see that happening in the near future?
But it gets even worse. Because at the top is Jeanie, just as much a child as Magic and Pelinka. See, she made that first mistake in hiring Magic and Pelinka. Then she doubled down on it by accepting what they were doing. You know, she could have backed those coaches and said, Randle, Russell, Zubac and Thomas are staying, but she didn't.
But who will fire her, she's the boss.
The very best solution for this team, perhaps the only way out, is something that would have been unthinkable twenty years ago. The Lakers need to be sold, to be divested of any Buss. Do you think that will happen?
And so, staying with reality here, all we can hope for is Jeanie someday realizes her mistake and hires some good, professional people to run this team. Not children, not fans, but adult thinkers.
And given Jeanie's character and her past record, well, good luck with that day coming.
When young children are in charge of any complicated, high pressure endeavor, you have a problem.
Where is adult in this room who will clean this mess up?
There isn't any.
