Los Angeles Lakers should make Jerry West, Pat Riley top priorities

The Los Angeles Lakers stumbled upon a golden opportunity to hire Jerry West or Pat Riley to replace Magic Johnson as head of the Lakers’ basketball operations and must do so before it is too late.

The Los Angeles Lakers are in an absolute free fall.

Magic Johnson, beloved Lakers legend and now-former president of basketball operations, resigned abruptly and without warning, leaving owner Jeanie Buss and the Lakers organization reeling and in chaos.

Should Jeanie Buss continue to look toward the Lakers family tree for a steady hand in a time of existential crisis, there are only two names that make sense: Jerry West and Pat Riley.

While there are competent and available candidates to replace Johnson outside of former Laker greats, such as former Cleveland Cavaliers general manager David Griffin, Jeanie Buss and the Lakers have shown to base some important hiring decisions on familiarity and trust rather than practicality and experience. So far, Buss has given no indication that she is willing to conduct business any differently moving forward.

One would not have to go too far back to find examples of poor hiring decisions by the Lakers based on familiarity with the organization. For example, Showtime-era champion Byron Scott was hired as the Lakers head coach from 2014 to 2016 to usher in Kobe Bryant‘s final seasons.

This was a failed experiment before it began. Scott was interested in implementing a comically outdated notion of “smash-mouth, old-school basketball” rather than keeping up with the modern NBA, which calls for fast-paced basketball, high-percentage shot selection near the basket, and ample 3-point shooting. In two seasons, Scott garnered an abysmal 38-126 record before being fired.

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The failed Byron Scott experiment was both a literal and metaphorical lesson in hiring pragmatically and keeping up with the times rather than holding on to past Laker success.

In 2017, however, Buss hired Magic Johnson as president of basketball operations and Rob Pelinka as general manager without interviewing any other candidates.

Neither Johnson nor Pelinka had ever held a basketball executive position before. Nevertheless, Buss trusted Johnson so much that she was finally comfortable enough to fire her own brother, Jim Buss, and replaced him with Johnson.

Last night, just a little over two years later, Johnson enumerated the reasons why he decided to quit so publicly without so much as notifying Buss. “I was happier when I wasn’t the president,” Johnson admitted. Johnson felt constrained by the NBA tampering rules, the “the backstabbing” politics of the job, and was clearly unwilling to bear the unsavory duties and long hours of the position.

Hiring a past Laker great is not enough. Phil Jackson is a Laker legend with five championship rings as a Lakers head coach, but he would be a disastrous hire for the same reasons hiring Johnson was: both Johnson and Jackson are too distracted, too successful, and too content with their lives and legacies to do the job properly. Not to mention, Jackson himself was a failed executive for the New York Knicks from 2014 to 2017.

Jeanie Buss has the opportunity to place the Lakers in a better position than Magic Johnson left it.

Lakers legend Shaquille O’Neal suggested Jerry West as Johnson’s replacement:

Fox Sports’ Cris Carter suggested both Jerry West and Pat Riley:

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith also suggested Jerry West:

It is painfully obvious to most that if there was ever an appropriate time to hire a Laker great to run basketball operations, the time would be now and for two names and two names only: Jerry West and Pat Riley.

Jerry West is the most successful executive in NBA history.

West orchestrated Shaquille O’Neal’s free agent signing and the trade for Kobe Bryant in the summer of 1996 and changed the Lakers franchise forever.

West was instrumental in creating the current Golden State Warriors dynasty.

West is the reason the Los Angeles Clippers outshined the Lakers this season. Thanks to West, the Clippers are in prime position to enter free agency with cap space for two maximum-level free agents and have bragging rights to a playoff berth in the loaded Western Conference without a single star.

In 2017, Jerry West was available and willing to finish his career with the Lakers:

"“Sometimes I thought that in my life that maybe that might be something that I can revisit, or they would want me to revisit,” West said. “But that didn’t happen. At times, I don’t say I was disappointed, but it kind of sent me a message that they wanted to go elsewhere, which is fine. But to say that I wouldn’t have liked to ended my career there, that wouldn’t necessarily be true either.”"

At 80 years of age, West is not a long-term solution. However, his son, Ryan West is. Ryan West is the Lakers’ director of player personnel and a prime candidate to take over basketball operations for the Lakers. A chance to mentor and groom his son for his beloved Lakers for a few years before retirement would be a more than enticing proposition.

In 2017, the Lakers passed on hiring Jerry West because Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka felt they could handle the job without him.

Would the Lakers make the same mistake by passing on Jerry West once again?

Pat Riley is currently the president of the Miami Heat. Riley was not only the Showtime-era coach with four championship rings as the Lakers head coach, with five championships as a head coach overall, but he was also instrumental to bringing LeBron James and Chris Bosh to Miami in 2010. Riley went on to win two more championships as an executive overseeing the LeBron James era in Miami.

What would it take to bring Pat Riley back to Los Angeles to finish his career? After all, Dwyane Wade played his last game tonight after 15 seasons with the Miami Heat. What more does Riley have left to prove in Miami?

Riley notoriously left the New York Knicks in 1995 to join the Miami Heat. Who is to say he would not do the same for his beloved Lakers?

It would be a home run for Jeanie Buss to turn the disaster Magic Johnson left into a miracle by hiring either Jerry West or Pat Riley.

Would either legend take the job?

Only they would know, but only Buss could pick up the phone and try.