Los Angeles Lakers: Time for the Buss family to go
By Jamaal Artis
It’s over: I’m not just talking about the Los Angeles Lakers season, I’m asking that the Buss family should be done too.
But it won’t happen. The value of the Los Angeles Lakers is probably more lucrative to them than the outstanding amount they can get for a sale. But the truth of the matter is the Buss Family, with Jeannie Buss as the head, should no longer run the franchise.
The team has now missed six consecutive postseasons, astonishingly this year they missed the playoffs after landing LeBron James.
Wasting year one of what is likely the last of LeBron’s prime years is a step too far, it is unforgivable and it’s further proof the head doesn’t know what the tail is doing.
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Frankly, it’s enough, no more scapegoating. Before it was the inept Jim Buss, this year it’s coach Luke Walton, next it will probably be Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka.
It’s time to start questioning the leadership at the very top.
Jeannie Buss is a respected executive, she is not someone who was just given the Los Angeles Lakers. She joined the team in the mid-’90s and worked her way to her position from the business side.
The Lakers brand thrived under her leadership, but when she became a principal owner after the death of the great Jerry Buss, the basketball side has dropped so much the brand has been hurt.
An irrelevant Lakers team had never existed before in the NBA, Jeannie and her siblings took over and now it’s common. The losses on the court is magnified by the nonsense off of it.
The latest incident came to light last week when an LA Times article revealed Jeannie Buss had email correspondence with executives from the Madison Square Garden group (MSG). In the emails, Jeannie discussed moving the Lakers back to the Forum (MSG owns the Forum in Inglewood).
The discussion was in response to the then announcement by the Los Angeles Clippers and their owner Stave Ballmer choosing to build their own arena in Inglewood.
Jeannie is quoted as calling Ballmer “Balls” and “Ballz” and comes off petty and out of touch.
"“Didn’t Ballz see what we did to my brother?? He will have nothing but Clippers basketball. Whoopee.”"
The brother alludes to the firing of Jim Buss as VP of basketball ops and then suing him for principal ownership when he attempted a coup with another brother, Johnny Buss.
It’s doubtful Jeannie thought her emails would see the light of day, but the fact that she would attack an owner with deeper pockets than her and one who has been more successful in his short time as Clippers owner shows how venal Jeannie has become.
She seems to hold on to the past that just isn’t there anymore, plucking the city’s most popular team from the heart of the city to go back to a time that this generation has forgotten looks like more branding than actual basketball sense.
Next. Things we've learned from Lakers missing playoffs. dark
Doing it as a pre-emptive strike to sink the Clippers’ plan is just sheer pettiness (while in partnership with the NBA’s worst owner) is further proof that the Los Angeles Lakers are in better hands of another owner.