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"If I'm a Lakers fan, that's the most concerning thing -- at no point in the past two or three years is there clear evidence on an organizational level that they've had some 'Come to Jesus' moment like, 'Wait a minute. Something is not structurally working the way it used to,'" an NBA analytics official said.

"In the last two or three years, they've been so far from their expectations every year, whether it's trades or wins or free agency, all these things are not happening the way they've been hoping. It sounds like they're just waffling after the fact, which is kind of the opposite of doing some soul-searching and figuring out a better way forward."

"It's like [they think], 'We're not on the Titanic.' Yeah, you are," an executive said. "'No, we're not. It's all right. No, we're good.' No, you're not good. You're not good. It's sinking. People are in lifeboats. They're jumping off. You're not good." "That's only in Hollywood," one executive said.

"They're one big deal from being in good position again," one executive said. "That's what it takes. And that's what they've been able to do in their history and I wouldn't count them out from being able to pull it off again."

"When you mean 'turn it around,' do you mean a championship? Because that's done. That's not happening unless they make a miraculous trade and get four new people. Who do they have on the Lakers? I'm not sure. I'm not joking. Do they even have anyone to trade that somebody would want?"

"They need to do the same thing Sacramento did -- get new players," said O'Neal, now a minority Kings owner.

"The Lakers are still the Lakers no matter what," one executive said, "but the Knicks have been saying that forever, too."

Said one agent: "Championship organizations start from the very top. I think the Lakers are hopeless, to be honest. I think they're the West Coast Knicks."

"I think the Lakers tricked themselves into thinking that what they did before was smart and they gave themselves credit for it and, to be honest, it's probably not fair to give themselves credit for a lot of that success," one agent said. "That's probably the No. 1 thing working against them right now -- they feel like they created the success once so whatever they're doing, they'll just do it again."

Said another agent, "They're in major trouble -- and the Lakers name isn't going to save them."

One agent said if he were in charge, "I would clean house."

"The reality to me is that the Lakers aren't going to be better and are going to have a difficult time rebuilding with Jim Buss running the organization, and, to be quite frank, with Mitch Kupchak being in the front office," the agent said. "That's not because Mitch isn't intelligent or doesn't have experience or doesn't have rings; Mitch is still acting like they're winning championships every year or that players care about the Lakers [like they did] in years past."

An agent went so far as to say that "the biggest thing they can do to help" is to throw money at a big-name coach.

Said one analytics official, "Frankly, if they're smart, what they do is they bring in the best freaking coach out there. You pay a coach -- that doesn't count against your salary cap -- [and] you get the best coach you possibly can."

dockingsched wrote:I laughed at the blow it up and be like Sacramento part. Sacramento is everything the lakers shouldn't do, build around a questionable leader, remain in the lottery for a decade, have an incredibly unstable front office, and give away assets and long term cap to sign players that might get you in the playoffs but never more than that.

I actually think the lakers are further along their rebuild which is astonishing consider the lakers are rebuilding off a title winning team and the kings have been accumalating lottery picks for a decade.