The Atlanta Hawks are dominating the NBA right now. The San Antonio Spurs have been the most consistent, successful team of the past decade. Cleveland has LeBron James. Oklahoma City has Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, making them a serious contender every year. Golden State has the Splash Brothers and is a favorite to win it all this season. Houston, Portland and the Clippers are loaded with young talent and appear to have bright futures. Miami has been to four consecutive finals. What do all of these highly successful and entertaining teams have in common? They can’t come close to matching the success of the current Los Angeles Lakers.
Blue Man Hoop
Do not let anyone fool you, the NBA is a business, and in business, the most important statistic is the bottom line. On that score, the Lakers are the runaway winner, despite having the worst basketball team in franchise history. It doesn’t matter that their starting center right now is Robert Sacre, their starting small forward is Ryan Kelly, and that, for most of the season, their starting point guard was Ronnie Price.
Recently, Forbes reported that the Lakers are the most valuable NBA franchise, worth an estimated $2.6 billion. The average NBA franchise is worth $1.1 billion, a staggering 2 ½ times less than the Lakers’ per season profit. The second most valuable team is the New York Knicks who are also horrific this year. In fact, if we include the pathetic Brooklyn Nets and the equally awful Boston Celtics, four of the six most valuable teams in the NBA are also four of the worst when it comes to playing basketball.
If we consider profitability per season, the Lakers are again the clear winners. Last season, the worst in Laker history since the team moved to Los Angeles, the team’s profit was reported to be $158.3 million. To provide a clear picture of just how dominant the Lakers are where it really matters, the Chicago Bulls were the second most profitable team last season but their profit was less than half of what the Lakers earned!
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What does all this mean for Laker fans? For one thing, it means Jim and Jeanie Buss are not losing any sleep at night no matter how poor the team’s record is this year. For another, it means there is no great urgency on their part to build a winning team. In the past 20 years, for all the players in all the sports who signed massive free agent contracts, how many have gone on to be as dominant as they were when they were young and hungry? The same principle applies with owning a team. Winners are usually the ones who are hungriest to win. It appears that the value of an NBA franchise is determined more by its location than by whether the team is any good. All six of the top valued teams are located in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, or Boston.
It is just human nature. The Buss siblings inherited their wealth. They benefited from the labors and talents of the legends who came before them who built the Lakers into the brand they are today – Jack Kent Cooke, Bill Sharman, Jerry West, Phil Jackson, Magic Johnson, and of course Jerry Buss. It is not their fault, and they should not have to apologize to anyone for their good fortune, but Jim and Jeanie have never had to struggle to build anything and they don’t have to struggle now. They face little pressure, as the team can lose and they’ll still come out on top. There is no urgency for the team to win since it doesn’t seem to matter in terms of the profitability of their business.
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Of course, Jim and Jeanie want the Lakers to be better. It must be embarrassing to have to appear in certain public settings knowing that everyone is judging them and finding them unworthy of owning the team. They don’t want to let their father down, and they want to prove they can make it on their own. They also know that someday, if the team does not start winning again, it will begin to eat into the bottom line. However, win or lose, that day is far off. Recently, the owner of Barry’s Tickets appeared on a local sports talk show and was asked whose tickets were selling better this year, the horrible Lakers or the entertaining Clippers.
His answer was the Lakers. For Laker owners, while it would be nice to win, there is no urgency to do so. They have the richest and most powerful franchise in the NBA, even though the team is awful. In these circumstances, why sweat the losing?