Time to axe Mitch?

[iamworthy]

Interesting question. By all accounts the lakers have a very good advantage recruiting all-star players because of legacy and location. Im not saying that Mitch has done a bad job but could someone come in here using the same advantages and do a better job? Perhaps the Spurs GM? There's really no way to tell if Mitch is doing a good or bad job without bringing someone else in here to do the same job with the same advantages. Granted lakers have won chips. But could we have won more chips? Could the rebuild have gone faster?

[Sofa King]

Interesting question. By all accounts the lakers have a very good advantage recruiting all-star players because of legacy and location. Im not saying that Mitch has done a bad job but could someone come in here using the same advantages and do a better job? Perhaps the Spurs GM? There's really no way to tell if Mitch is doing a good or bad job without bringing someone else in here to do the same job with the same advantages. Granted lakers have won chips. But could we have won more chips? Could the rebuild have gone faster?

Trade for an aging future HOFer was a bad gamble. They were able to get Dwight Howard in that trade for just Bynum, but trying to keep Dwight by hiring a coach (MDA) that doesn't suite Dwight didn't work out too great. MDA running Kobe into the ground leading to season ending injuries was another result of this decision. The Lakers made a lot of gambles that should have paid off but didnt.

It's a blessing that Dwight did leave given his injuries as of late. Dwight was a top player in the league but he's struggling to get on the court.

Whoever hired Mike Brown and then Mike D'Antoni gets negative points.

Do I want to see Mitch go? No. He's got time to rechange the course and make things right. His history with the team gives him that much. But I have to blame Mitch as much as Jimmy on the decisions that are made.

Never trading for Dwight might have been a good thing. Never trading for Nash would have been a great thing. Never hiring MDA would absolutely have been wonderful.

Phil Jackson coached Jordan and Kobe. Phil would have been the best option to keep Kobe running.

[Pointgod]

no, this season he's doing great. getting Boozer, Lin, Ed Davis.. draft Clarkson and Randle who have tons potential, and still maintaining cap flexibity, not doing any knee jerk move like most GMs (example Hennigan, overpaid for Gordon and Frye).

and we potentially add top 5 players in 2015 draft..

he is good.

You and I have different standards for great. First you honestly can't say the GM of one of the worst teams in the league is doing "great". Management didn't acquire any additional assets at the deadline, they didn't get anything out of Hill, Lin, Davis or any of their players. I know what you're going to say, there wasn't value for them, well whose fault is it for acquiring them in the first place. Mitch hasn't actually built a team, just a bunch of guys playing for their next contract and some potential in Clarkson. We don't have a boatload of assets that Boston and Philadelphia have. We don't have anyone with even borderline allstar potential. And if you're going to tank go all the way don't do it half assed considering we don't even have our pick is only top 5 protected. The goal should be to finish the season in the bottom 3, finishing 5th is the worst thing that could happen to us. Their priority should have been building assets, and landing a top 3 pick. What they're doing now are half measures, I wouldn't be surprised if they resigned Lin and picked up Hill's option.

yes i can say that.

i think Hinkie probably one of the best GM in NBA. He has revolutionary idea about rebuilding. Yes its revolutionary, because we never saw this kind of tanking. Its so patient, no bad contract, he hires a good coach, has nice player development result etc. Time will tell.

as for our half ass effort to tank, of course the will try for the best, they probably want to keep casual fans happy, or Silver already promised them to get top 3 pick.

Hinkie is the definition of fake hustle. He is literally selling people on a dream and people are drinking the kool aid. I guarantee you that in 3 years the 76ers will be in the same position. He trades players like its NBA 2k and creates a toxic losing culture. No major free agent is going to sign in Philadelphia for a fear of getting traded. Philadelphia is the perfect recipe for an endless spiral of suck.

[Sedale Threatt]

Maybe I'm getting impatient.

Gee, you think? This is something the Knicks would do, getting rid of an experienced GM, trained by maybe the best to ever do it, who has built championship teams. Whatever the Knicks would do, we should do the opposite.

[Sedale Threatt]

Interesting question. By all accounts the lakers have a very good advantage recruiting all-star players because of legacy and location. Im not saying that Mitch has done a bad job but could someone come in here using the same advantages and do a better job? Perhaps the Spurs GM? There's really no way to tell if Mitch is doing a good or bad job without bringing someone else in here to do the same job with the same advantages. Granted lakers have won chips. But could we have won more chips? Could the rebuild have gone faster?

Jerry West said one time that maybe the hardest thing to do in the NBA, perhaps even harder than building a championship in the first place, is rebuilding around a superstar in mid-career. Sure, you've got a great piece to build around. But the window is shorter, they're making huge dollars to soak up cap space as opposed to earlier in their career, your other resources are limited as a result of usually being at least decent, or rather not bad enough to get top picks.

It's just a hard thing to do, and the Lakers did it.

You'd think that would earn a little bit of good will, especially coming relatively shortly after a three-peat. We had an all-time superstar, and we squeezed about as much mileage as we possibly could out of him. We're essentially hand-cuffed until he's gone.

I get why some people are so spoiled that a five-year championship drought is cause for legitimate outrage, but I can't help but be a little disgusted by the lack of patience. This is how you get backed into making dipisht moves like signing an aging Carmelo Anthony. (Thank God that didn't go down.) If we're, say, three years past Kobe's career and still sucking, then it's time to talk about firing Mitch. But definitely not now.

Because here's the question that always seems to go unanswered when you start talking about firing somebody: Who are you going to get that's better? Outside of Presti and Buford, neither of whom I see leaving even for big raises -- Buford already made it known he wouldn't take the Seattle job for basically unlimited dollars if they'd have gotten the Kings -- I don't think that person exists.

[ALL HAIL]

Interesting question. By all accounts the lakers have a very good advantage recruiting all-star players because of legacy and location. Im not saying that Mitch has done a bad job but could someone come in here using the same advantages and do a better job? Perhaps the Spurs GM? There's really no way to tell if Mitch is doing a good or bad job without bringing someone else in here to do the same job with the same advantages. Granted lakers have won chips. But could we have won more chips? Could the rebuild have gone faster?

Many on here may disagree, but I think it's safe to say, already, that he's not doing as good of a job as Jerry West.

It's fair to say that Jerry West would have never blindly and myopically sold off those draft picks, and it's also fair to say that West would have, at some point, brought in an apprentice for Fisher, someone to provide a spark off a latent bench.

It's really a shame that, according to many reports, Phil Jackson was such an **** to West. You almost can't blame Jim Buss for not wanting Phil around. Jackson strikes me as the type of dude who has been scheming to take over the Lakers' player/personnel operations since the day he walked through the door, and the more they " need" him, the more he leverages his power.

The fact that he was able to, allegedly, cause enough friction within the front office that the "architect" (Jerry West) wanted out, speaks volumes.

[Kilroy]

West saw Dr Buss almost like a father figure and was really high maintenance about it. He was really insecure about the relationship he had with Dr Buss, and made a rash decision to leave when he didn't think his concerns were being heard about Phil. I think he regrets that decision to this day... But even he says Mitch is a great GM... He trained him.

Frankly threads like this make me want to go read the General Board... Nothing irritates me more that fans pointing to a bunch of hypothetical deals they would have made as proof the FO is inept. Disregarding the fact that they have at best, partial, rumored, 3rd and 4th party, information about the supposed deals. It's like saying, "If I was the cops, I would have just gone to the Book Depository building and shot Oswald" to prevent the Kennedy assassination... It's asinine in it's revisionist simplicity.
Sure, there are things that could have gone better... Deals that could have been more productive... But that's the Game... None of it is an indication anyone in the organization is inept... Including Jim Buss... Yet.

This off season is really the first big, make or break challenge for this front office in my opinion. A bad draft pick, or a bad signing at this point could set this Team back years, right now. They've got all the rope in the world right now, they'll either lasso up some good talent, or hang themselves... I think it's either make or break. And by 'make,' I don't mean a Championship Contender next season, I mean the next, budding LA dynasty.

It's a damned tall order, but I think that's the challenge the FO faces this off season. And I'll be jumping on the fire somebody bandwagon if we aren't well on that path come trade deadline time, 2016.

But firing Mitch right now would be one of the worst moves any organization has ever made... Not only because Mitch is the last person in the FO that should be fired, but also because the timing would be horrendous for this team. We need to be brilliant this off season, and it would be unfair, even if we got Jerry West from 1980 as our new GM, to expect them to come in and knock it out of the park, as a Newb.

[kblo247]

Okay.. How about..

- Trading Kwame, Crittenton and a retired McKie for Gasol?
- Trading Evans and Cook for Ariza?
- Hitting on many second round picks?

If we fired Mitch, we'd be in complete disarray. Anyone who knows anything about basketball knows he's one of the best in the business.

Those moves while great were clearing up his own mistakes

Gave away an all star in Caron butler for Kwame in a sign and trade at more than the market was offering Kwame. For a team that spent the very next year one play away from the next round maybe even conference finals, its hard to say he didn't goof because Kobe, Caron, Luke, and Lamar could've won the first round.

He goofed on McKie and coughed. Up the mid level expedition to a guy who never contributed. That is why we needed up getting Smush, profit, and Shammond Williams. He made us inflexible there when we had guys like Damon Stoudemire willing to come for the same type of deal and expressing interest, but was told we weren't interested like Isiah Thomas this past summer.

He is the one who over paid for cook and extended him to the deal that basically kept him in the league. That was solely on him. He erased it with Ariza, but the fact is he goofed there. And trading for mo was also a goof on draft night when Geroge was the better player and signed for the bae that summer. It hurt chemistry from the playoff team the year before.

On so many? Ebanks, Caracter, Goudelock, Morris, kid from the Congo, Sun Yue ... Come the hell on. There was Luke and there was Marc, now Clarkson. It's not that great a track record at all.

Mitch still makes a lot of the same mistakes. He overbid on Walton vs himself much like with cook, and did the same with Sasha. That's why he attached picks to get rid of their deals. He wasted the expedition phenomenally with Blake most Blake's stay here as he was useless the first two years and the next two he was out as much as he played well. He wasted the exemption on Vlade Divac the year before McKie, and that hurt us all year long in 2005, like him wasting the room expection on Ryan Kelly and Xavier Henry hurt the team this past year depth and play wise.

The fact is Mitch was well on his way to being exposed at one point. From letting the 3 peat teams Jerry west built deplete its talent pool every year to they fell apart in 2003. To not maximizing the Shaq trade return and being saddled with Brian Grant over Eddie Jones who they had to amnesty, to not letting Payton know of the trade to Boston at all which caused him to be pissy and it to be altered so we didn't end up with banks. To Divac not playing all year after being given the mle. To Caron for Kwame, signing McKie with the mle and forcing us to run the trash that was Smush at pg. To signing Radmanovic and then not choosing to erase his contract when he went snowboarding. To again the overpaying of his guys and needing to attach picks to them to shed them later. To using picks to acquire guys like Sessions and Dwight only to not retain them. To the hiring of the coaches in Rudy T, Mike Brown, Dantoni, and Scott who all sucked or suck in Byron's case donkey ass. And Nash, 4 **** picks, a coach to cater to him, and all it ended in was running Dwight out of town and Kobe into the ground to over compensate. Firing Phil's whole staff before game 1 vs Dallas was also a cherry on top of stupid.

Pau saved the living **** out of him ... Right place, right time. It was luck more so than skill, as we had a perfect stroke of big expiring, retired vet who was still on the books because he never sent his papers into the league office, a prospects rights who they've known since he was a teenager in 9th grade, and a pissy Pau who was faking an injured back and pouting ... There was no better perfect storm of luck that that **** because we were up against a wall. His plan, his vaunted window that they promised Kobe had long come and gone, and then Pau fell in our laps, fishers daughter got ill and he fell in our laps with ucla, and Ariza was so far on Stan's **** list it all happened. There was no direction that team or front office was going though, which is why Kobe pissed on them in the media to wake the **** up.

He'll even though the cp debacle was ducked up, he had no contingency. He just wanted them to all comeback and act like nothing happened over flipping Pau for the rockets haul at least. Years later it leads to Pau saying **** you and your money, I'll play elsewhere and you won't get nothing for me, much like we will get nothing for hill

If the lakers don't make the playoffs next year, Mitch will have had the series of worst coaching hires, losing stars, being shunned by stars, and worst record in franchise history on his resume. Part of that is Jim, but Mitch has always maintained he and Jim are partners ... So he gets the boot right alongside him at the end of that window most likely, and while he has a eat head for numbers, he is a both as far from west as Jim is from his dad tbh

[kblo247]

Interesting question. By all accounts the lakers have a very good advantage recruiting all-star players because of legacy and location. Im not saying that Mitch has done a bad job but could someone come in here using the same advantages and do a better job? Perhaps the Spurs GM? There's really no way to tell if Mitch is doing a good or bad job without bringing someone else in here to do the same job with the same advantages. Granted lakers have won chips. But could we have won more chips? Could the rebuild have gone faster?

Many on here may disagree, but I think it's safe to say, already, that he's not doing as good of a job as Jerry West.

It's fair to say that Jerry West would have never blindly and myopically sold off those draft picks, and it's also fair to say that West would have, at some point, brought in an apprentice for Fisher, someone to provide a spark off a latent bench.

It's really a shame that, according to many reports, Phil Jackson was such an **** to West. You almost can't blame Jim Buss for not wanting Phil around. Jackson strikes me as the type of dude who has been scheming to take over the Lakers' player/personnel operations since the day he walked through the door, and the more they " need" him, the more he leverages his power.

The fact that he was able to, allegedly, cause enough friction within the front office that the "architect" (Jerry West) wanted out, speaks volumes.

Phil was a quote ass to west because west worst quality was undermining Harris and Rambis. Kobe and Shaq both said it, Eddie said it, and Nick alluded to it. They had a problem and took it to him, not the coaches back then or amongst themselves, and he was always there after a game, always present, like a mini Cuban.

Phil told him gtfo because they didn't need him being a mediator. It was Phil's team. You had a problem about your role, strategy, whatever run it through Phil and tex. The 97-99 teams would have won if they had the same structure.

[LApwnd]

Jim needs to step down, don't care about this time frame and honestly from the looks of it, 3years isn't going to be enough to turn this team into contenders. Jim might as well save the rest of us the headaches and hassle he's putting us through.

[Karmaloop]

Those moves while great were clearing up his own mistakes

I'd rather take a GM whose willing to gamble and get burned than someone who is too afraid to make mistakes. That's the Lakers franchise for you. They traded a proven Vlade Divac for a high schooler, when it was the unpopular thing to do at the time. Mitch's track record more than shows that he's the right guy for the job. He's the one who managed to acquire Pau Gasol, he's the one who acquired Dwight, found Clarkson, etc.

[So Gutta]

Mitch should also get credit for drafting Bynum, and creating an all-star and at one point one of the top centers in the league. Critical for the 2 championships. Clarkson looks like an absolute steal.

[Dr Aki]

Mitch should also get credit for drafting Bynum, and creating an all-star and at one point one of the top centers in the league. Critical for the 2 championships. Clarkson looks like an absolute steal.

we all know bynum was a jimmy pick

mitch wanted granger

[LAKESHOW]

im past and done the blaming stage. im all "blamed out" hell, I just wanna win.

get this thing fixed Jim!!(lol, that's my last blame)

[Pointgod]

Those moves while great were clearing up his own mistakes

I'd rather take a GM whose willing to gamble and get burned than someone who is too afraid to make mistakes. That's the Lakers franchise for you. They traded a proven Vlade Divac for a high schooler, when it was the unpopular thing to do at the time. Mitch's track record more than shows that he's the right guy for the job. He's the one who managed to acquire Pau Gasol, he's the one who acquired Dwight, found Clarkson, etc.

What? lol if anything the Lakers are the epitome of a team that has been risk adverse. They'd rather doing nothing and sit on players rather than flip them into assets or take a chance on non star players. For example I could never see the Lakers taking a chance on a 6th man like Harden like the Rockets did.

Everything Kblo247 said was correct. No front office gets things right 100% of the time, but it seems like the Lakers are content to just do nothing unless its a no brainer.

[Kilroy]

Yet you and Kblo would be screaming the loudest at Mitch, if they took any of those supposed 'Gambles' that seem so obvious to you and they didn't work out... Kblo and about half this forum would be in jail for terrorist threats against the Buss family, if we'd 'gone after Harden' and ended up with Rodney Stucky...

Just look at the risks we did take that Jim and Mitch get hounded about constantly... Nash for example. This team was devastated by the CP3 debacle... I'm not sure very many of you guys realize just how bad morale was after that. LO instantly became useless and Pau became even more neurotic. So what does the FO do... They go out and get a HOFer that was playing like a top 5 pg the previous season, for basically pennies... Nash at best had a year or 2 left in him, but it was a pretty great save after the league (Sterling, Cuban, Gilbert) jumped us in the shower room...

Then there's Lin... That was a risk and a steal depending on how you look at it... But Lin has sucked in LA and many of you guys see that as one of Mitch and Jim's biggest failings... Yet it was a risk that was taken.

Trading for Howard was a huge risk... I questioned his ability to stay healthy and dominant from the beginning... And holding on to him and letting him expire was a huge risk...

Like you said, these things don't always work out... But you can't criticize the FO for the risks they took on one hand and then criticize them for not taking risks on the other... That's the definition of a "Myopic/Delusional/Spoiled Laker Fan."

[Karmaloop]

What? lol if anything the Lakers are the epitome of a team that has been risk adverse. They'd rather doing nothing and sit on players rather than flip them into assets or take a chance on non star players. For example I could never see the Lakers taking a chance on a 6th man like Harden like the Rockets did.

Everything Kblo247 said was correct. No front office gets things right 100% of the time, but it seems like the Lakers are content to just do nothing unless its a no brainer.

They're risk adverse because they don't jump at the first deal offered to them? Go back to when the Suns and Lakers were reportedly discussing a deal sending Pau to Phoenix. There wasn't even a consensus on what else the Suns were adding to Emeka's corpse. One reports said the Lakers were adamant for a pick, and the Suns thought that giving up cap relief was even incentive for the Lakers to the deal.

And no, the Lin deal wasn't a risk. It was a win-win proposition for everyone. For Lin, a chance to play back home and in a big market. For the team, they got another asset which they had virtually none outside of Randle prior to that and more importantly had someone besides Kobe who could help put butts in the seat. If anything, they should have done more deals like that but instead we chose to claim Boozer off amnesty waivers.

[Mirjalovic]

Mitch should also get credit for drafting Bynum, and creating an all-star and at one point one of the top centers in the league. Critical for the 2 championships. Clarkson looks like an absolute steal.

we all know bynum was a jimmy pick

mitch wanted granger

Granger wasn't that bad tho.. an allstar, and Pacers ace..

[iamworthy]

Trade for an aging future HOFer was a bad gamble. They were able to get Dwight Howard in that trade for just Bynum, but trying to keep Dwight by hiring a coach (MDA) that doesn't suite Dwight didn't work out too great. MDA running Kobe into the ground leading to season ending injuries was another result of this decision. The Lakers made a lot of gambles that should have paid off but didnt.

Not much argument from me here. I agree with your post and I would have hired Phil way before MDA. But critics will say D.Howard was the best pick n roll big in the game so it only made sense to put him with Nash. But yeah, I was never a MDA fan. His introduction press conference turned me off.

It's a blessing that Dwight did leave given his injuries as of late. Dwight was a top player in the league but he's struggling to get on the court.

Amen bro.

Whoever hired Mike Brown and then Mike D'Antoni gets negative points.

I think Mike Brown needed more time. But Im not going to cry that he's gone.

Do I want to see Mitch go? No. He's got time to rechange the course and make things right. His history with the team gives him that much. But I have to blame Mitch as much as Jimmy on the decisions that are made.

Thats fair.

Never trading for Dwight might have been a good thing. Never trading for Nash would have been a great thing. Never hiring MDA would absolutely have been wonderful.

Actually trading for D.Howard was great. We got rid of Bynum. That would have been a epic failure to keep Bynum. At the time I think the talk was about maxing him out if we kept him. Could you imagine? Nash was the desperation move. They were trying to give Kobe as many weapons as possible...or at least I hope that was the thinking. Screw MDA and Nash. Im more mad that Nash didnt work out more than I am at him.

Phil Jackson coached Jordan and Kobe. Phil would have been the best option to keep Kobe running.

[iamworthy]

Interesting question. By all accounts the lakers have a very good advantage recruiting all-star players because of legacy and location. Im not saying that Mitch has done a bad job but could someone come in here using the same advantages and do a better job? Perhaps the Spurs GM? There's really no way to tell if Mitch is doing a good or bad job without bringing someone else in here to do the same job with the same advantages. Granted lakers have won chips. But could we have won more chips? Could the rebuild have gone faster?

Jerry West said one time that maybe the hardest thing to do in the NBA, perhaps even harder than building a championship in the first place, is rebuilding around a superstar in mid-career. Sure, you've got a great piece to build around. But the window is shorter, they're making huge dollars to soak up cap space as opposed to earlier in their career, your other resources are limited as a result of usually being at least decent, or rather not bad enough to get top picks.

It's just a hard thing to do, and the Lakers did it.

You'd think that would earn a little bit of good will, especially coming relatively shortly after a three-peat. We had an all-time superstar, and we squeezed about as much mileage as we possibly could out of him. We're essentially hand-cuffed until he's gone.

I get why some people are so spoiled that a five-year championship drought is cause for legitimate outrage, but I can't help but be a little disgusted by the lack of patience. This is how you get backed into making dipisht moves like signing an aging Carmelo Anthony. (Thank God that didn't go down.) If we're, say, three years past Kobe's career and still sucking, then it's time to talk about firing Mitch. But definitely not now.

Because here's the question that always seems to go unanswered when you start talking about firing somebody: Who are you going to get that's better? Outside of Presti and Buford, neither of whom I see leaving even for big raises -- Buford already made it known he wouldn't take the Seattle job for basically unlimited dollars if they'd have gotten the Kings -- I don't think that person exists.

Good Post ST. For the record, I never mentioned Firing Mitch. As far as the fan base, I think fans are ok with whats going on. Teams playing hard but falling short in the end. I think the turn off was bringing in the coach and the best player of the rival team that broke our hearts in the playoffs. I mean imagine, when lakers were up on the suns 3-1 I think, and we loss that series, from that miracle 3, had we won that I think we would have played clippers in the next round, thats a win, in the western conference finals we would have played Mavs, I believe Kobe owned the mavs that year. One game he had like 40 and the other game he had the 62 in 3 qtrs. That then puts us in the finals. Would have been Phils greatest coaching performance ever but was killed by a miracle three by the suns...F the suns