"... a steaming pool of nepotism and nincompoops"

[Atmanne]

Ken Berger, with a depressing column on how far the Lakers front office has fallen: http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/1736 ... ont-office

Even people who work in the basketball operations department have "no clue who's on the staff," said a person with direct knowledge of the organization's structure.

"It would be interesting to find out who's doing the scouting," the person said.

Kupchak tried to fight to keep his staff, and his efforts were appreciated by some and viewed as not enough by others. The GM is "on an island by himself," said another person familiar with the situation.

"He doesn't know who to trust anymore," said another.

Bryant isn't the only one who doesn't know what's going on, who isn't being kept in the loop on the organization's plans. In short, nobody is. And that's a problem.

Brown, hired in May, learned of the team's decision to trade Lamar Odom to the Mavericks for essentially nothing after the deal already had been completed. Sources with ties to the team say no explanation has been given to Bryant or Brown as to what the Lakers plan to do with the trade exception received in the deal.

[ennui]

Jim Buss is gonna be the death of us.

[crazyeights]

Time to occupy Staples?

[Sedale Threatt]

If we don't parlay that trade exception into a quality player, that's proof that this team -- cough, Buss, cough -- has no clue what its doing.

EDIT -- And after reading that piece, now I'm really ticked. And disappointed.

[DrewBynum77]

F U shortBus, Jim.

[crimsonkb24]

Jim Buss is gonna be the death of us.

Yep, will be a very painful future

[Father Time]

Seems like Jimmy is intent on creating his own era for better or worse. Crossing my fingers but don't have much hope...

Also it must suck to be Mitch right now.

[Sedale Threatt]

Maybe Chaz the Bartender will dig us up a couple of gems in the second round.

[4everlakers]

i think lakers fans should make a protest in the front office or even during lakers games at staples center
make our voices heard
jim buss is turning everything to a circus right now, jeannie should be the one sitting there
mitch can not do his job well with jim buss in there

[DrewBynum77]

The only thing that makes me have hope of our future is the resurgence(not really) of the Clippers.

ShortBuss, Jim would not dare to let the lakers stink as much as he wants because he would lose a lot of money.

If he could do us what bulls owner did to the organization for like 15 years and still get sellouts he would do it...

[4everlakers]

with a bartender "chaz" working in the front office, i think jim buss doesnt really care. he just wants to party with his friends in the "unreachable" office they have. im sure he will bring in more of his unqualified friends to the front office sooner or later. who knows, he has already one of his friends in line waiting as soon as mitch gives up his post.

[Reflexx]

Eric Pincus stated on Twitter that sources are telling him that Chaz is not a bartender.

[Jetset]

Can you people let things play out before crucifying the FO? You're not even giving him time to actually do anything. It was said Jim would be the death of the franchise after we got swept out of the playoffs, then all of you were left looking foolish when he turned Pau and Odom into CP3 and $30 million in savings. It isn't his fault Stern vetoed the trade, give the man time to work.

Piling on Jim right now seems to be the "cool" thing to do, it's ridiculous. But it's nice to know this board is filled with LeBrons that are ready to go when the going gets tough.

[Father Time]

Can you people let things play out before crucifying the FO? You're not even giving him time to actually do anything. It was said Jim would be the death of the franchise after we got swept out of the playoffs, then all of you were left looking foolish when he turned Pau and Odom into CP3 and $30 million in savings. It isn't his fault Stern vetoed the trade, give the man time to work.

Piling on Jim right now seems to be the "cool" thing to do, it's ridiculous. But it's nice to know this board is filled with LeBrons that are ready to go when the going gets tough.

I give more credit to Mitch for the Paul deal than Jim, personally.

And I don't think any of us are going anywhere, just not looking forward to slogging through the mediocrity that seems to be in store. But slog we will.

[Gek]

Can you people let things play out before crucifying the FO? You're not even giving him time to actually do anything. It was said Jim would be the death of the franchise after we got swept out of the playoffs, then all of you were left looking foolish when he turned Pau and Odom into CP3 and $30 million in savings. It isn't his fault Stern vetoed the trade, give the man time to work.

Piling on Jim right now seems to be the "cool" thing to do, it's ridiculous. But it's nice to know this board is filled with LeBrons that are ready to go when the going gets tough.

I really don't think that was Jim homey

[Jetset]

Whatever. Point is, the same people that orchestrated that deal are still there. Have there been reports of Jim firing anyone since December? Because if so, I haven't seen them and they sure haven't been reported by anyone credible. Give it time, then if it doesn't work out you at least have a real reason to hate.

All the hating and piling on that's going on right now is undeserved and absurd. He's only been in charge a couple months and all of a sudden our future is the same as the Bobcats to some of you.

[DrewBynum77]

so then we should also give him "credit" for turning the 6thMOY into NOTHING, right? Just to save money...

If we still had Odom our bench would be much better... (yadda yadda he's sucking yadda yadda, right.)

So before he turns that TPE into a good SF / SG or in a package to get a superstar player I'll keep blaming him.

[dockingsched]

Whatever. Point is, the same people that orchestrated that deal are still there. Have there been reports of Jim firing anyone since December? Because if so, I haven't seen them and they sure haven't been reported by anyone credible. Give it time, then if it doesn't work out you at least have a real reason to hate.

All the hating and piling on that's going on right now is undeserved and absurd. He's only been in charge a couple months and all of a sudden our future is the same as the Bobcats to some of you.

[Jetset]

so then we should also give him "credit" for turning the 6thMOY into NOTHING, right? Just to save money...

If we still had Odom our bench would be much better... (yadda yadda he's sucking yadda yadda, right.)

So before he turns that TPE into a good SF / SG or in a package to get a superstar player I'll keep blaming him.

If you want to blame anyone for how that happened, then you need to point your frustration at Lamar. He's the one that specifically requested a trade to Dallas and nowhere else. And how do we know that Jim was behind trading Odom to Dallas? Mitch gets credit for the CP3 trade, why doesn't he get credit for the Odom trade? It's not as if Jim called Dallas up and made the trade on his own, I'm sure Mitch knew about it. I'm even sure Mitch was behind it. It's funny how everyone's pointing their finger at Jim and no one is doing so at Mitch, especially when this area is actually Mitch's job.

So once again it goes back to piling on and aiming undeserved criticism all at one person.

[carlquincy]

The main problem I have with FO is communication.

Kobe & co. has no idea what direction they are going, what moves they are about to make. This is the core that has went to the Finals 3 times and winning 2, yet they are kept in the dark for all matters involved.

IIRC, Gasol & Odom knew about the trade for CP3 through the media. WTF. If they are traded, show some respect to players, tell them that they are traded personally and explain the situation.

A functional franchise should have open communications through the various layers. Does not seem to be the case here. FO doesnt talk to players. Coach Brown claims that he is only here to coach. Players have no idea when/if they are traded.

Kobe is your franchise player. The FO has every right not to take his input, but at the very least let him know about the status and direction of the franchise.