MartinToVaught wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:I find what I see in this "late stage Buss administration" to be incredibly insightful. Why is it the first generation guy was so good despite not having a basketball background while his kids are not despite being groomed their entire lives for this purpose?
I don't think the main answer is "Jerry was just much smarter than his kids".
I think there's two clear differences between the Jerry era and the post-Jerry era:
1. When Jerry was still alive, there was no question that he was in charge. Now that his kids have inherited the Lakers, there's already been some dysfunction and drama involved in who runs the team. Jim kept screwing up, so Jeanie decided it was her turn to run the Lakers. If Jeanie keeps screwing up even worse, you just know at least one of the other kids is waiting in the wings to take their turn as owner. You can't run a successful organization when the people who are supposed to be leaders aren't on the same page with each other and are more interested in playing politics than improving or even maintaining the company. Unfortunately for Laker fans, it seems the one thing that the Buss kids can agree on is keeping the franchise within the family rather than selling it to a wealthier and more competent owner.
2. Jerry surrounded himself with great basketball minds like Jerry West, Pat Riley, and Phil Jackson. Jim hired Chaz the bartender. Jeanie asks her friends from spin class what to do with the roster.
It's not that Jerry was necessarily smarter than his kids. He was just normal. He operated the way that normal sports owners do. The freakshow that has followed his era has been anything but normal.
Good point here, but I would quibble about some things.
What was made explicitly clear at the time - and you may be aware of this but skeptical it's true - is that Jim's regime was about Jim running basketball inside Jeanie's business, and now Jeanie's regime is about hiring basketball professionals to run the basketball while she runs her business. I'm largely inclined to believe this, and thus unless Jeanie has a mental breakdown, I don't see any reason to think anyone else is going to be able to force her out of the way. Of the Buss siblings, she's the professional of the bunch - the one who you could plausibly hire at some other company and expect her to be a reliable worker rather than just entitled rich kid.
Of course, this is why it's all the more disheartening to see what's come from her leadership to this point. The professionals she's hired are all people she already knew for years because of their proximity to the Laker organization, some of whom were adults when she was a kid.
To become an effective owner, she needs to get to a point where she can actually go from not knowing someone to knowing whether they are right for the job she herself cannot do. This is not an easy thing, and it's important not to be too negative when someone struggles with this in particular instances. All organizations make bad hires sometimes. But you have to develop a process, and you're not developing that process when you're just hiring guys you met through your dad.
I would advise Jeanie that the next time she is looking to hire a choice position - like a GM or a coach - she seriously put the word out that she wants the best lieutenants from the best NBA organizations to be interviewing, and that she try to avoid hiring anyone with Laker blood. I wouldn't be looking to gut the entire organization, but if ever there was a time where an outsider's voice in leadership would be necessary, this is it.
