No, not Beyonce, Ms. Jeanie Buss! The owner and Luke Walton’s strongest supporter!
It is my strongest belief that the only reason that Luke Walton is on the sideline at this stage of the season is the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, Jeanie Buss. Walton’s support system that he had at his disposal is all but disappeared the day Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka took over for the guys that hired him, Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss. We’ll get to those guys in a second.
Let’s allow Marc Stein in on the “open secret” going on in Laker Land.
"It is also an open secret in Lakerland that Walton has the strongest possible backing from the owner Jeanie Buss. Even if the front office tandem of Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka held Walton responsible for the Lakers’ swoon and wanted to make an in-season change, Buss almost certainly would prevent such rashness."
Well, the rashness almost needed a 100 pounds of cold cream after the Lakers got humiliated by the Cleveland Cavaliers at home. I don’t care what anybody says about Luke Walton’s status for the rest of the year, a loss to the Chicago Bulls would have sealed the fate of Walton. It was ugly and in no way helping Walton’s cause but the Lakers won.
Then something happened! Luke Walton coached…I mean REALLY coached! The Lakers upset the Thunder on the road on national TV and pushed James Harden and the Houston Rockets to the limit in an overtime loss. Luke Walton gained a fan after getting ejected after Lonzo Ball got injured…ME!
Luke Walton got ejected???? I just became a fan!!!! @Lakers fans now have a coach!!!! Protect your players!!!!!
— Ron Agers (@SPORTWORLDORDER) January 20, 2019
Fast forward to Ms. Buss’ interview on Zach Lowe of ESPN’s podcast, “The Lowe Post” on the franchise’s support of their head coach.
"“I can tell you right now, everyone, Magic, Rob, myself, everyone in the organization is behind Luke. There’s nothing more important to Earvin, to Magic — besides his family — than this Laker team. And we are doing everything we can to make sure that Luke is successful in his job. That’s our job. “I think he’s doing a terrific job. Given the injuries that we’ve had, it’s a challenge. People forget, like, he’s had two of our starters taken away from him. And they’ve won really important games on the road, proving what is possible even without LeBron. “It’s still difficult to lose the games you’re supposed to win when you’re at home to a sub-.500 team. It’s really hard to lose those games. But then you go out on the road and you get the wins over Oklahoma City, and these great teams in our conference that are where we want to be at the top of the conference, (and) I think that you can see that there is progress being made even without two of our starters. I think Luke’s done an impressive job.”"
I guess that’s a wrap! Article over, let me send this to the editor to check. One more question? Is Luke Walton safe though? 100 percent! He just is not going anywhere right?
"“You’re asking the wrong person. The vision has to come from Magic. From where I sit, from what I can tell you, every single thing that we’re doing, every single person in the organization is here to make Luke successful.”"
Oh well, I guess I have to keep going. Let’s see what Mr. Earvin Johnson has done over the past season.