Jeanie Buss Interview

[Lost Angel]

I like Jeanie as the owner, but I don't like her inner circle all that much.

I also didn't like Vogel as the coach for Westbrook, and think they need to hire someone who has coached big personalities before and that is comfortable enough to bring on Mike D as assistant coach. Mike D is the only guy who can get Westbrook to perform while keeping other players numbers up as well. Lakers HAVE to be younger this year. All those old bones didn't hold up

[LAL1947]

I thought the Lakers didn't care about the cap bill, as they are supposed to be eternally shock full of money, no?

Hey, we aren't GSW... trying to buy another title with their billionaire owners while complaining about the 1%.

Bazinga.

[jokeboy86]

The ironic thing about Jeanie listening to all these people who've had some connection to the Lakers from the past is the one person who she probably should listen to above all of them, they ran out the organization and now he currently doesn't want anything to do with them.

[Noctilux]

Michael Jordan used to treat the Hornets as his family business just like Jeanie Buss appears to. He still does somewhat, but not nearly to the extent that he used to. He's replaced a lot of his buddies with more competent professionals, has brought in additional investors, and stepped back from being involved in day to day operations. He could always revert to his old ways and give his college roommate Buzz Peterson the POBO job when Kupchak retires, but I have hope he's put those days behind him.

So TLDR there's hope that she'll change her ways once it becomes obvious what's she's doing isn't working.

Dr Buss treated the Lakers like a family business. He did pretty good. And if we go from 1980 to now, the Lakers have 11 rings.

Yup! They basically have won 26% of NBA titles playing against 23-30 teams in the last 42 years.

[The411]

Yahoo! report on Jeanie interview (originally given to LA Times):

https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-jeanie-buss-says-she-110046500.html

Thoughts?

Worrisome IMO... very much. She basically confirms all the stories and reports about her inner circle and decision making process, all while doubling down on it.

Sure she sounds, as always, very transparent and comes out like a nice person, who genuinely does and wants the best for the franchise.

But she seems too emotional and insecure for this. The Lakers is family to her, and that's why she surrounds herself by people she considers family. She has deep connection to literally all people who are in charge or advise basketball decisions. I'm not sure there's any other franchise where this is the case...

It almost feels like she has a bit of a crush on Rob Pelinka, to be honest... she's so emotional about everything.

Look, her insecurity is perfectly understandable. She leads the most famous and storied franchise in basketball, dealing with the most pressure to win, in a world of men, a multibillion dollar business, carrying the heritage of her father, all while spending her whole life involved with it.

But it's just too much of a burden to carry. In order to succeed she would need great, if not exceptional leading traits - specially when you mix business and family like this.

Also, she emphasized how tough it was for her to go into the luxury tax... it also didn't look good from the financial side of things.

Honestly, it would just be better for the Lakers if the franchise was sold to rich owners with some connection to the city, but most importantly, who are willing to spend and actually treat it like a basketball business. The Jerry Buss era is long gone.

But, as Jeanie said, that's not happening for now. Actually it looks like it's a long, long way from happening...

Future is not looking great in Lakerland - even with all the innerent advantages they have over 25 or so other franchises...

The problem is that we are all inequal at making decisions and ot everyone can be a leader and not everyone is suitable for their roles.

One of the key components of being a succesful owner is not meddling and hiring top quality people.

The problem is that she hired friends and the dynamic of Westbrook decision suggest she's not cut out to do this job.

Hiring friends is not what wins in sports and in fact hiring friends is one of the quickest ways to fail in sports.

Of course sometimes hiring the best person and being friendly can work, but that is an outlier.

[chrisab123]

Great interview but not her best.....just a hair below her 1995 magazine interview...

I'm a Celtics fan but I found that 95 interview very insightful and well articulated.

[SK21209]

Michael Jordan used to treat the Hornets as his family business just like Jeanie Buss appears to. He still does somewhat, but not nearly to the extent that he used to. He's replaced a lot of his buddies with more competent professionals, has brought in additional investors, and stepped back from being involved in day to day operations. He could always revert to his old ways and give his college roommate Buzz Peterson the POBO job when Kupchak retires, but I have hope he's put those days behind him.

So TLDR there's hope that she'll change her ways once it becomes obvious what's she's doing isn't working.

Dr Buss treated the Lakers like a family business. He did pretty good. And if we go from 1980 to now, the Lakers have 11 rings.

Yup! They basically have won 26% of NBA titles playing against 23-30 teams in the last 42 years.

The big difference is that the "family" Jeanie is leaning on aren't as talented. Claire Rothman was instrumental in making the Forum an LA destination and keeping the money flowing. West has a great eye for talent and the gravitas to make tough decisions. Riley is a natural leader and his confrontational coaching style, even with star players, meant everyone had to buy in. Dr. Buss had a big-picture vision of what the Lakers could be, but empowered everyone around him to run the day-to-day in their spheres.

The problem today is that the people around Jeanie don't have that kind of expertise in their roles. I understand that Pelinka is, in a way, the last link to Kobe in the organization and its hard to let that go, but he doesn't seem to have a vision for how the team should play and doesn't seem particularly adept at negotiating trades. It also doesn't help that he's disliked by front offices around the league. Then you have Kurt Rambis, a failed coach who's ridden Phil's coattails since he stopped playing, sitting in on coach's meetings and exit interviews. I won't even speculate on what Linda Rambis does. I don't mind Phil in a consultant role, but I'm not sure what influence he actually has given his relationship with Jeanie and he was a pretty terrible executive with the Knicks. They tried to pick Lue's assistants for him and second guessed all of Vogel's decisions (a lot of which were bad, IMO), so there's been a pattern of not allowing the coach to run the team as they want to for better or worse.

Frankly, the Lakers were lucky that a lot of really capable people were already around in 1980 who just needed an owner with a vision and young star like Magic. That isn't the case now. Jeanie can have a small circle of trust, but that circle needs to be highly competent. Joey and Jessie Buss have shown promise, so hopefully they continue to rise in the organization. But for now, we'd probably be best served hiring someone like a Sam Presti to reset the front office from the top. There's no franchise vision right now, its just LeBron.

[wutevahung]

Yahoo! report on Jeanie interview (originally given to LA Times):

https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-jeanie-buss-says-she-110046500.html

Thoughts?

Worrisome IMO... very much. She basically confirms all the stories and reports about her inner circle and decision making process, all while doubling down on it.

Sure she sounds, as always, very transparent and comes out like a nice person, who genuinely does and wants the best for the franchise.

But she seems too emotional and insecure for this. The Lakers is family to her, and that's why she surrounds herself by people she considers family. She has deep connection to literally all people who are in charge or advise basketball decisions. I'm not sure there's any other franchise where this is the case...

It almost feels like she has a bit of a crush on Rob Pelinka, to be honest... she's so emotional about everything.

Look, her insecurity is perfectly understandable. She leads the most famous and storied franchise in basketball, dealing with the most pressure to win, in a world of men, a multibillion dollar business, carrying the heritage of her father, all while spending her whole life involved with it.

But it's just too much of a burden to carry. In order to succeed she would need great, if not exceptional leading traits - specially when you mix business and family like this.

Also, she emphasized how tough it was for her to go into the luxury tax... it also didn't look good from the financial side of things.

Honestly, it would just be better for the Lakers if the franchise was sold to rich owners with some connection to the city, but most importantly, who are willing to spend and actually treat it like a basketball business. The Jerry Buss era is long gone.

But, as Jeanie said, that's not happening for now. Actually it looks like it's a long, long way from happening...

Future is not looking great in Lakerland - even with all the innerent advantages they have over 25 or so other franchises...

As a Lakers fan, I am tired of people moan and bitch about the ownership group, especially Jeanie, including our own fans. We literally won the ring not even 3 years ago, and people act like Dr. Strange casted the spell on it. With the health of our 2 franchise players in the past 2 seasons, would anything really have been different?

Some of the problems people raise I think are definitely legitimate, like how she only uses people she know and rarely hire outside of the Lakers family tree.

However, some stuffs like "looks like Lakers will be better off with a rich owner who know what they are doing" are just pointless. Not false, but pointless. The defending champion Bucks literally just let go PJ Tucker for nothing to save money. Besides Clippers, Warriors, and Nets, which are all owned by new owner groups and are the only 3 teams above Lakers in payroll this season, which ownership group can be said to be definitely better than current one? How come we do not hear about "Wizards should be sold to an owner who is rich and knows what he is doing."? We often ask owners to get out of the way for FO, to not get involved (like Kings), and we here got an owner who trusts her FO, the same FO who brought her a ring not even 3 years ago, and people want her to meddle in? the hypocrisy is unreal sometimes.

Her being emotional is good to me. At least she cares, and not just treating this as a money making machine like some of people wish she is treating it. It is her father's legacy, and her legacy, and her family's legacy, she should be emotional. As long as she is not illogical or delusional, it is okay.

She is not perfect. I wish she can keep more staffs, the ones that have been with us for a long time. I wish she could have foreseen the Westbrook trade would not have worked and said no to the FO. I wish she would have ousted her brother 2-3 seasons before it came to that point. However, she is not cheap, and she is not a bad owner, and in fact, I bet many fans from other ownership groups wish they have an owner who is as supportive and emotionally involved in the franchise as Jeanie.

[GSWFan1994]

Yep. I would guess Jerry Buss made rational decisions look emotional, only for persuasion purposes..

Always nice seeing a Brazilian posting here.

Post more!

Cheers.

[Kordic27]

I'm sure dealing with the divas in LA has its own challenges, but given the fact that they have the location that every NBA player wants to play in, let alone the money and the history, means that any competent front office should be able to easily be in the playoffs every year.
The game is weighted in their favour, so not being able to compete literally every year is ridiculous.

The Knicks haven't won a ring since 72', just stop with this nonsense. The Lakers are the most successful team in modern sports with the Buss family.

Yeah but the Buss’s in Minnesota win zero rings. Guaranteed. The greatest contributor to laker success is location.

[wutevahung]

I'm sure dealing with the divas in LA has its own challenges, but given the fact that they have the location that every NBA player wants to play in, let alone the money and the history, means that any competent front office should be able to easily be in the playoffs every year.
The game is weighted in their favour, so not being able to compete literally every year is ridiculous.

The Knicks haven't won a ring since 72', just stop with this nonsense. The Lakers are the most successful team in modern sports with the Buss family.

Yeah but the Buss’s in Minnesota win zero rings. Guaranteed. The greatest contributor to laker success is location.

cool, you want a cookie for this imaginary scenario or do you want to discuss what actually happened?

[Kordic27]

The Knicks haven't won a ring since 72', just stop with this nonsense. The Lakers are the most successful team in modern sports with the Buss family.

Yeah but the Buss’s in Minnesota win zero rings. Guaranteed. The greatest contributor to laker success is location.

cool, you want a cookie for this imaginary scenario or do you want to discuss what actually happened?

I would love a cookie! But yes of course the scenario is impossible to confirm. It’s an opinion. But it’s an opinion brought by years of my team’s best players threatening to leave, being overpaid, or leaving. This doesn’t happen to LA or Miami. If you feel it’s a level playing field, I suggest you follow a small market team for a while.

Edit: and for the record I think Jeannie is an okay owner. Middle of the pack. And Jerry Buss was a great owner.

[DwayneSchintzus]

As a Spurs fan I loved reading it. I hope she continues to run it like a family business just as Dr. Buss intended.

[mplsfonz23]

Dont have time right now to read, but does she confirm what the Winning Time series portray he and dad to be true. I know West hates it.

[lamscott]

Man... you new jacks would have hated Jerry Buss if you think Jeanie is bad. Remember when he said buy to Derek Fisher? Robert Horry? Byron Scott? Etc. etc.... because he didn't want to pay them? Well if you don't then you need to do some research.

[JonFromVA]

I'm not sure why Jeannie is having such a tough time, I can only assume it's money her siblings don't want to spend on professionals because it takes money out of their own pocket.

But from my POV, if you want to run a team like a family then stop hiring mercenaries and develop people to step up in to front office and coaching positions like the Spurs do ... or embrace the mercenary approach and pilfer top coaches and executives from other teams by spending money and utilizing your reputation/location.

The Cavs for instance had Ty Lue on hand to take over when David Blatt was fired and JB Bickerstaff for John Beilein because they paid them very nicely to be next in line and wait their turn; but that's money the trust fund siblings wouldn't be able to put in their bank accounts.

[powerhouse117]

Yeah, she recently got a championship in 2020. I mean, there are far worse owners out there.

Not causal, ie. the championship not a result of great ownership and oversight. Ownership was simply the beneficiary of LeBron wanting to move to LA and A.D. only willing to be moved to one franchise.

Over the last decade, the Lakers are on par with the bottom quarter franchises of the NBA. In that time, the reasonable argument can be made that the Clippers have been the premier franchise in LA, not the Lakers.

[wutevahung]

Yeah but the Buss’s in Minnesota win zero rings. Guaranteed. The greatest contributor to laker success is location.

cool, you want a cookie for this imaginary scenario or do you want to discuss what actually happened?

I would love a cookie! But yes of course the scenario is impossible to confirm. It’s an opinion. But it’s an opinion brought by years of my team’s best players threatening to leave, being overpaid, or leaving. This doesn’t happen to LA or Miami. If you feel it’s a level playing field, I suggest you follow a small market team for a while.

Edit: and for the record I think Jeannie is an okay owner. Middle of the pack. And Jerry Buss was a great owner.

sorry for the late reply, I don't check often.

If you phrased it as "if they were in MN then they wouldn't get close to the success they have in LA" then ya I agree, but when people put out stuffs like "guarantee something something in this fictional scenario that none of can prove" then to me people just aren't talking in good faith. There are a lot of small market teams contended for championships. Glenn Taylor is like one of the worst owners in all sports, and Jerry was one of the best, it is not inconceivable to me that he could have win couple rings as a small market owner. Hell, even Glenn came pretty close with the 04 team if Sam Cassell didn't get injured in WCF.