Jeanie Buss unplugged: Lakers, Kobe, Phil and Byron
Imagine being Jeanie Buss.
You’re the top decision maker for the Los Angeles Lakers, the president/governor and part owner who spends the vast majority of your time telling the team’s massive fanbase that – contrary to the many signs that say otherwise – better days are ahead.
You handle the team’s business affairs, as well as all discussions relating to league-wide matters, but the basketball component is, for all intents and purposes, completely out of your hands.
For now, anyways.
By the end of next season, the 54-year-old daughter of the late Dr. Jerry Buss will have some clarity that has hard to come by in the past few seasons – especially with the unique dynamic presented by Kobe Bryant’s twilight years. She will either be preparing to make major changes to the team’s front office because of another disappointing season, and thereby executing the shape-up-or-ship-out plan that was put in place by her brother and the team’s vice president of basketball operations, Jim Buss. Or, should the Lakers pull off a major turnaround, she’ll be celebrating a return to prominence along with the rest of them.
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“I hope that we’re not having this same conversation a year from now (about the Lakers’ struggles),” said Buss, whose team entered Sunday with the second-worst record in the NBA (11-45) and with a combined record of 59-161 the past three seasons.
The Lakers’ boss discussed the state of the Lakers at length with USA TODAY Sports in her visit on the NBA A to Z podcast recently, and this much is clear about the way she sees their world.
• 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.”
Translation: despite recent speculation that she might expedite the timeline in order to bring her fiancé, New York Knicks president Phil Jackson, back to the Lakers, there is no such covert plan as it relates to next summer. Jackson signed a five-year, $60 million deal with the Knicks in March of 2014.
“It really isn’t about trying to get him back here (to the Lakers),” Buss said. “He is happy with what he is doing, and he … is up for the (Knicks) challenge, and he’s seeing the results of the work that he’s put in. But he has a ways to go.”
• If there are some members of the organization who believe that the Bryant dynamic might change the way they are judged, that’s not the case. Most recently, Kupchak told ESPN in early January that Bryant’s farewell tour has made it challenging to develop the team’s young talent. Lakers coach Byron Scott, who has one more guaranteed season on his current contract, has been heavily criticized all season for his handling of players like D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and Jordan Clarkson.
“I don’t buy into that, that Kobe is such a distraction,” Jeanie Buss said. “It’s about managing how things go. I see a player like Kevin Garnett who has done well in Minnesota with the younger players. A guy like Dwyane Wade playing with younger players (in Miami). I think you see it around the league everywhere.
“I don’t understand why that narrative has been created. It shouldn’t be that way – maybe Kobe’s popularity (affects it more)? But I don’t see what that has to do with training and practicing and things like that. Maybe I’m just naïve.”
• The relationship between Jeanie and Scott is a distant one at the moment, which is a surprise because of their history. While the nature of her position is such that their basketball and business worlds don’t often collide, Scott is a fellow member of the Lakers family with whom she celebrated three championships during his playing days (1985, 1987, and 1988) and who she has known for decades.
Yet as was the case in the time that led to the Mike D’Antoni’s resignation as Lakers coach in May 2014, Jeanie revealed that she’s not having any consistent dialogue with the team’s head coach who so many believe could be fired this summer.
“I haven’t had a conversation with Byron Scott (about the challenges of the Bryant dynamic),” Jeanie said. “I think I’ve talked to him maybe three times since he was hired. And I know he must be extremely busy with such a young group of players (but) I don’t really know if that’s how he feels about it. He hasn’t expressed that to me but yet we really haven’t had too many conversations where that would ever come up.
“Now certainly when Phil was here (as Lakers coach), we were always talking because we were in relationship. Coaches before that like Pat Riley, and even Del Harris (who) I had a friendship with, he would stop by my office. I don’t know if that’s just the lay of the landscape. Being a head coach in the NBA is a very time-consuming job and so that might be something would be difficult for him to find the time, nor do I talk Xs and Os. Maybe there really wouldn’t be anything I could offer him in terms of support (but) I am supportive of him and that if he did need something, I would make sure that our staff would provide it.”
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• With the Lakers poised to have approximately $66 million in salary cap space this summer, Jeanie is aware that this summer comes with high stakes. The Lakers’ plan, one that many around the league still see as far-fetched, is to finally land a top-tier free agent who can turn the franchise around.
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.”
Yet unless the state of Lakers basketball gets a whole lot better, she’ll be making the tough decision that was set in stone long ago.