Jeanie Buss still expects the Lakers to contend next season
The Los Angeles Lakers are in the midst of the worst period the team has ever seen. The most consistently successful franchise of the history of the NBA set a record-low winning percentage last season and is on pace to finish with even fewer wins this season, which would also mark the Lakers’ first-ever run of three consecutive seasons without a playoff appearance. It’s uncharted territory for an organization with such a rich tradition.
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It’s also a massive disappointment given the expectations set by co-owner and president of basketball operations Jim Buss. The son of longtime Lakers owner Jerry Buss said that he would resign from his position in the front office (not give up the ownership stake, of course) if the team was not contending for conference and NBA titles by 2017 or 2018.
His sister, Lakers president Jeanie Buss, sees no reason not to hold Jim to that promise despite the goal looking less likely than ever. From Sam Amick of USA Today:
There is no change to the timeline that Jim first shared in April of 2014, when he indicated that he would resign if the team wasn’t contending for a title by next season. Since then, it has become clear that Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak would likely be part of this equation as well.
“I think that (Jim Buss) was very sure of himself when he promised that timeline, and I think that he has everything he needs to fulfill that promise of getting the team back competitive,” Jeanie Buss said. “And when I say competitive, it’s competing for the Western Conference Finals, which would mean at least second round (of the playoffs) – if not more … They have earned the right to take the time that they’ve needed to put together what they want to have out on the court, and if they can’t do that then we have to reexamine how things are going.” […]
But unless Kevin Durant or a prospective free agent like him shocks the world and heads for Laker Land with a few of his superstar pals, the immediate future might very well be as bleak as the recent past.
“I think that what we offered (the many free agents who passed on the Lakers in recent years) didn’t match where they were in their careers or what they were looking for,” Jeanie said. “Hopefully now, our story and what we have to present will be enticing to whoever they have targeted in terms of free agency to bring here. But again, I don’t make the decisions about the vision of basketball.”
If this line sounds familiar, it’s because Buss said much the same thing in January 2015. At that point, the Lakers were a very bad team with the longshot hopes of improving via a forthcoming high-lottery pick, a chance at nabbing an All-Star free agent like LaMarcus Aldridge, and the assumption that things couldn’t get much worse. The situation has only gotten worse — No. 2 overall pick D’Angelo Russell has failed to win the favor of old-school head coach Byron Scott, the pitch to Aldridge failed miserably, and the Kobe Bryant retirement tour has overwhelmed the long-term thinking required to rebuild effectively. It will only get tougher if the Lakers draw bad luck in the lottery and have to give up their top-three protected pick to the Philadelphia 76ers.
So it’s a safe bet that Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak will be out of jobs, because even a best case scenario for the Lakers might not put them in the thick of the Western Conference race. This team needs more than Kevin Durant, a top rookie like Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram, and internal improvement can provide, and the likelihood that a bevy of talent comes to Staples Center is poor at best.
It’s easy to argue that Buss and Kupchak would deserve their fate. While the latter built the championship teams of 2009 and 2010 and made several big moves in later years that were widely praised at the time, the Lakers have looked like a team at odds with itself for at least the last two seasons. It was always going to be difficult to transition away from a Kobe-centric team, but the installation of Scott as head coach in the 2014 offseason doomed their chances of concurrently developing new talent to lead them into a new era of contention.
Plus, Buss did not have to make his promise and can only blame himself (and the culture of continued success that bred him) for setting up impossible expectations. Very few people thought that the Lakers were close to title contention in April 2014, and only he felt it necessary to say that the team had “turned the corner” this preseason.
Nevertheless, Jeanie Buss’s interview with Amick raises concerns over what the Lakers would look like under new management, as well. Jim and Jeanie set up a clear division of responsibility to ease tensions following their father’s death in February 2013, but they appear to have set up a system that makes success very difficult. Jeanie Buss claims to have spoken to Scott only a handful of times since he was hired, which seems bizarre in comparison to organizations like the Golden State Warriors that prize synergy. For that matter, Buss also says that she cannot understand why Bryant’s prolonged retirement tour would serve as a distraction to the rebuilding process, a naive claim at best (which she herself admits is possible) and a willful disavowal of responsibility at worst. Whoever takes over next — Buss promises it won’t be her fiancée Phil Jackson — will need to be on the same page as ownership, because few teams succeed with such a fractured sense of purpose as the Lakers currently have.
As ever, the Lakers’ biggest problem isn’t the quality of specific decisions as a general uncertainty as to what they’re trying to do. Jim Buss is only the most prominent proponent of the belief that the Lakers should be contenders no matter the shape of the organization. But those days are either long gone or too far ahead to treat as imminent. Failing to meet the expectations set by Buss could be the best thing to happen to the Lakers. At least it would show themselves that they’re all too capable of failure.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
