Lakers President Jeanie Buss will talk to family about the Lakers future at the end of the season. Time is ticking for Jim, who promised to step down.
Jeanie Buss, part-owner and president of the famed Los Angeles Lakers, promised Lakers fans there were better days ahead. She is facing some major decisions, and there is a huge deadline looming. A few years ago, her brother Jim Buss the Lakers Executive Vice President of Operations gave himself a self-imposed ultimatum in January 2014.
Along with Jim Buss, it seems Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak maybe on the hot seat as well. According to Jim Amick of USA today, ‘It has become clear that Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak would likely be part of this equation as well.’
Jim Buss pledged to his brothers and sisters that if the Lakers did not make the Western Conference championship in three to four years, he would step down. Jeanie was expecting him to lead the Lakers to at least the second round of the playoffs by 2016–17. That is this season, and it is not looking good, the Lakers are 16-34 and one win away from matching last season’s Lakers total wins. Better, but not exactly good enough right now to make the Western Conference Championships.
Last season two major changes drastically changed the Lakers Operations: The firing of Head Coach Byron Scott and the
Retiring of Kobe Bryant. Scott was hoping Bryant’s retirement would be the catalyst to give him another season to work out the kinks with the youthful Lakers, but that would not come to be. Former Lakers forward Luke Walton had just coached the Golden State Warriors to a record 36 wins and four losses, and would eventually take the Head Coach job for his former team.
Fans are being patient right now, they love the Walton hire, and they are bought into waiting for this 2016-2017 young and talented team to come into their own and make some waves. It just seems the NBA team that is accomplishing that this season is the Philadelphia 76ers behind their dynamic point guard T.J. McConnell who is getting a lot of attention while our Lakers are getting hurt and losing games.
Phil Jackson was going to become part of the Buss family, and proved competition for Jim Buss in the family. This sent Phil out to New York, and eventually, Jeanie and Phil broke off their engagement. So bringing Phil back to Los Angeles doesn’t look to be in the cards, especially because of all the drama happening with his Knicks and Carmelo.
There is a lot of hope right now for this season. The hope is that the Lakers would at least double their wins from last season for this season at the very least. That would be progress, but it won’t be what Jim Buss promised.
Queue the Magic Johnson and Jeanie Buss selfie and reports the two met to discuss the future of the Lakers on January 17.
Watching the @Lakers game with @JeanieBuss! #Lakeshow pic.twitter.com/4q9mBiHlcE
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) January 18, 2017
On Barry Katz’s podcast with Jeanie Buss on iTunes, she spoke about Magic Johnson and the fact she feels like Magic is a brother. Magic learned how to manage operations of a team from her father Jerry, and Jeanie is really proud of what he is doing with the Dodgers.
Katz also talked to Jeanie about the family business. “I’m kind of a mother figure — it’s unusual for sports because it is such a male-dominated industry,” she continued, “It was my dad’s dream to keep the Lakers in the family.” Jeanie calls the Jim Buss self-imposed deadline “The Timeline” or the three years. The six kids that Jerry Buss left his kids to had a private family meeting according to Jeanie who was given the role of Governor.
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In the meeting, Jeanie asked Jim, how long it would take for the team to be competitive again. Jim told her three years. Jeanie told him if they don’t get back there, they would have to talk about making a change. Jim shared the private story with the Times and Jeanie now has to hold him to his own timeline.
“Now here we are in our third season, and it’s looks, um, it’s not realistic that we, I mean there’s still a chance, and so like every other team as soon as the season’s over we will assess where we are and talk about moving forward,” Jeanie told Katz.
The family is figuring out what to do; she doesn’t think her dad made a mistake putting all six kids in charge, it took ten years to transfer all the stock to the family, paying tax each time he made a stock transfer. He made sure the kids wouldn’t have to make a choice of who would run the Lakers.
“He wouldn’t have tolerated three years in a row of not being in the playoffs,” said Jeanie, “the team came first, and he did everything he could to make his team a winner.”
In the Front Row hosts, Chris Rodriguez and Shereen Rayan (yours truly) talked about the Lakers and D-Fenders on their first podcast of the year including the looming Jim Buss deadline.
Must Read: Lakers: What Luke Walton’s Lineup Changes Could Look Like
We predict some significant changes in management for next season unless the Lakers can make the playoffs. You never know. Maybe the best candidate for the job is brother Joey Buss who is doing an excellent job with the
?