Magic Johnson on the Lakers: ‘You’ve got to get somebody to help [Jim Buss] out’
Kobe Bryant’s Viking Death March led off with the perfect ignominy of losing to the previously winless (SINCE MARCH) Philadelphia 76ers, and it’s probably going to be a little while before the shame lets up. This is how the team was designed, mind you.
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The chief designer, co-owner and head of basketball operations Jim Buss, has no issues making a 37-year-old that shoots 30 percent the NBA’s highest-paid player, working without the jaundiced eye of one Earvin “Magic” Johnson lording over him.
As such, The Greatest Laker Ever decided to weigh in on his former team’s leadership structure on Tuesday, following a press conference held to announce the hiring of Dave Roberts as the next manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers squad he co-owns.
“I’m going to say it again: I love Jim Buss. He should just be the owner, like his dad was just the owner,” Johnson said. “Let’s go back with facts, so I can back this up with facts: 27 wins a couple years ago, 21 wins last year. Three summers now, we haven’t signed anybody. I am backing this up with facts. We haven’t signed any superstar. We’ve had cap space. We had cap space last summer. We’re going to have more this summer.”
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“You’ve got to get somebody to help [Buss] out,” said Johnson, an unpaid Lakers vice president. “Just play your role. There’s nothing wrong with being a great owner.
“Just like me — I didn’t try to get involved in this [hiring] process, because I don’t know anything about the manager [Roberts]. That’s not what I know, so I stay out of the way. I want to sit down there and cheer for my Dodgers. I’m happy with that. That is what I want him to do. Just let somebody else help him to achieve his goal, which is to get the Lakers back to being great again.”
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Buss’ supposed self-imposed deadline for making the Lakers championship contenders again was always dubious from the start, despite his sister (and Lakers’ business el jefe) Jeanie’s proclamations. As Magic noted, the Lakers were in the free agent game both during the 2014 and 2015 offseasons, and have had little to show for it (despite 72 and sunny and all that cap space) save for one year of Carlos Boozer and Lou Williams – currently working up a sound Kobe impersonation while shooting 35 percent from the field.
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That percentage, to be frank, would be aspirational for Bryant. Following Tuesday’s 7-26 outing in his stateside hometown, the future Hall of Famer is shooting 30 percent from the floor. He is, genuinely, setting new standards for awful, and it has been terrible to watch. Willie Mays played centerfield for the Mets, Michael Jordan played shooting guard for the Wizards, and yet neither pulled off something as embarrassing as this:
Or this. Sigh:
At least Bryant’s family is having a little bit of fun with his stentorian turn:
Lakers coach Byron Scott, fully vetted as the Kobester’s No. 1 Excuse Maker, hardly seems bothered:
“Yeah, there’s going to be some games like that that you’re just going to live and die with it,” Lakers coach Byron Scott said of Bryant’s shooting. “You just hope that you don’t die too much. You hope that you can live a little bit more. Yeah, there’s going to be some nights like that.”
Guy, pal, coach – EVERY NIGHT IS “LIKE THAT.”
Scott went on to call some of Bryant’s misses on Tuesday “ill-advised,” which will likely earn him a fine from either Kobe or Jim Buss, as Bryant’s usage rate remains at his career average in spite of the clear decline in his game.
Again, though, the great Laker hope is that this is all by design. That Scott is acting as parts both Bloom and Bialystock as he guides the Lakers to the worst record in the West, helping them retain the draft pick that is set to head Philadelphia’s way should May’s lottery luck drop the Lakers out of the top three in this June’s draft. That the free agents that ignored Los Angeles in 2014 and earlier this year will flock to the team’s open arms once Kobe leaves the group.
Suddenly, Brandon Bass at center and Kobe Bryant shooting 17 three-pointers against the previously 0-18 76ers doesn’t seem so bad. The two teams that famously warred during the 1980, 1983 and 2001 NBA Finals are now learning from each other, piling up the losses and looking forward to July.
And, in the wake of Kevin Durant chiding all of us for pointing out that Kobe Bryant takes 17.6 shots per game while making 5.3 of them, Bryant happily contended that he could give zero rips about any accurate portrayal:
“Listen, I don’t budge on that stuff,” Bryant said. “I appreciate the good stuff. I appreciate the bad stuff. I would never whine, ‘Oh, you’re being too hard on me, please stop.’ That wouldn’t even sound like me.
“I sincerely appreciate the bad as much as I do the good, and hopefully the players coming up now understand that. Understand that it’s a journey, it’s a cycle, that you can’t take things personal. You’ve got to roll with it … it’s all good.”
It … it isn’t all good. Not for the players that have to go through the motions for four and a half more months, and 65 more games. When Nick Young is acting as your voice of reason, look out:
“We’re a circus,” Young said. “We’re playing terrible. We lost to Philly. Philly! What does that make us?”
It makes you 2-15, working with the second-worst record in the NBA and by extension the second-best odds to get the top overall pick, which would then leave the draft pick owed to Philadelphia (still strolling around with the league’s worst record, in spite of that loss to Los Angeles) to carry over until 2017.
Again, all by design. We think. We hope.
In a lot of ways, this is the Lakers’ honeymoon period. Nobody is expecting anything, their most knowledgeable fans want them to lose, their most ardent backers will even tell you that Byron Scott and Kobe Bryant are the worst at what they do for a living right now.
We’ve still got 65 more games to go of this, though. Goodness, gracious, sakes alive.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
