Ask Mr. Rambis

Hello everyone,
since I have been getting a lot of inquires about a variety of Laker topics, thought it might be best to create a dialogue here. Happy to respond to the best of my knowledge. If I don't know the answer, I will do my best to ask and find out (this may take a few days, as I am currently traveling). Please do take info with a grain of salt. Basketball rumors are rumors for a reason! And I have been told info that did not materialize in the past!

Best,
Mr. Rambis

 

I was asked about D'Angelo earlier, so let me shed some insight.

Couple reasons he was moved.

1) Get rid of Mozgov's contract. Pelinka was following the blueprint of other GMs, attaching a young player to a bad contract so a tanking team would take him on.

2) Lonzo Ball. Once the decision to draft him was made, Magic was all in on recreating showtime with Lonzo leading the break. He did not see the two as a good fit, hence he was moved in the deal instead of someone like Julius.

3) Immaturity. This is the off the court issues people are saying. He was not a hard worker. Would not practice much, and sort of assumed he would be the face of the franchise after Kobe. The Nick Young incident had him ostracized in most of LA in general, as both Young and his ex-fiance had a lot of influence in LA circles. This led to him becoming isolated, which in a big city, spells trouble for a young kid. He was headed down a bad path. This also made him unmarketable from an AEG standpoint, and they had no problem with pushing him out the door.

4) Mr. Mintz. Pelinka and Mintz had a rivalry as agents for the biggest clients, and there is bad blood there dating back a while. Pelinka will do anything to stick it to Mintz, as a personal vendetta.

Nobody expected D'Angelo to shape up so much and become the player he is today. The Nets FO was great in getting him support and helping him get his life back on track, even through his injuries. But as a young kid, I'm also not surprised he became more mature.

 

TIME, I like you, you are a funny guy!

I will copy this from a previous post about Rambis. There is a lot going on in a very dynamic situation. But here are the bullet points...

What I was told is this is likely a power play by the Rambis family.

-Linda asked (more like begged) Jeanie last year to give Rambis a job as a senior basketball advisor (basically did nothing). Jeanie relented. Rambis soon snuck into coaching affairs.

-After Magic resigned Jeanie was, and is, very lost. She turned to Linda for help. Linda wants Kurt in a position of power, likely as PBO. She suggested because nobody on the Lakers had any coaching knowledge, they would have a hard time interviewing a coach. She said Kurt would help as some more Xs and Os questions, so they took him along.

-Most of the Lakers wanted to go ahead with Williams due to optics about LeBron taking control. Kurt and Linda smartly raised enough doubt about his coaching record to delay the decision until Williams signed with Phoenix.

-Kurt and Linda then started to push the optics angle more. Kurt wanted Lionel Hollins as the coach, who is a friend, and if he gets his guy in, Kurt will have an easy angle into taking more control in the Lakers FO. They drove the Lakers to purposely low ball Lue to send him off. Now Rambis will push for Hollins. It is unclear if Jeanie will relent, but the AEG guys tell me it is looking more and more like the Rambis family wants to assume the power void in the Lakers FO and take charge of all basketball decisions.

 

It is not so cut and dry that Pelinka will always go out of his way to hurt Mintz, or vice versa. Both are still businessmen who have a job and have to do right by their stakeholders. But a rivalry like that does not go away, and I have been in meetings where Pelinka has made some questionable comments about Aaron, to put it one way.

Ainge is not so much known for having vendettas. Obviously he will never want to help the Lakers, but he is more of a ruthless guy. He will sell out his own grandma if it means getting ahead. Unfortunately players are not stupid and know this, and are wary of going to Boston. One injury and they'll be on the next bus out of there.

Mr. Bartelstein is a friend of someone I work with, and apparently he is s*** scared right now about what Ainge will do to Hayward given his performance after the injury. Hayward's camp begged Ainge to let him rehab the leg on C bag's time, but clearly it is not going too well. If Ainge gets rid of Hayward, it could be the end of his career much like Isaiah Thomas. It is a sad story on the money he lost out on due to Aing.e

 

Best compliment I have gotten all day! (Yes people I work with can be mean)

A lot of what I'm saying isn't fact. It's just AEG's sense of what's happening. Like I said, no direct line to Jeanie, there's a level of indirection, which skews things. But more often than not, these guys know what's going on.

 

You are very much correct about that.

In my experience, the best guys are the ones who know how to deal with these sorts of individuals, but don't stoop down to that level and are well respected. Mr. Myers comes to mind. So does Mr. Buford, but he made an egregious mistake last summer, and stooped down to the petty level with Pelinka. Uncharacteristic of him, but most likely due to Coach Popovich (my personal guess).

 

They don't really care about the basketball side. They are more tied to Jeanie and the business/media side. As long as that revenue doesn't stop (and it won't), they are okay. If something threatens that (e.g. Magic) they step in.

Jeanie doesn't care about the basketball side either. She wants to hand it off to someone and be done while she increases the valuation of the business with deals. That was her hope with Magic, who royally messed up. It's also why she's been calling Kobe every other day to take over and had AEG contact Ellen to ask him about it on air Linda is well aware of this and is trying to push Kurt in there.

 

What are the chances Kurt weasles himself into a POB position?

 

All this said, is there any chance at this point of bringing in someone to run basketballoperations or are we stuck with Rob and Rambis?

 

Reading my mind, brotha

 

Difficult to say, it's a very dynamic situation. Here's my take: Jeanie is a media person and is all about having a big name - hence why he's constantly calling Kobe about it. Rambis is far from a big name. Linda is pushing hard though, and my guess is that he'll end up as having a very powerful influence along with Pelinka, but not have the title of President.

This will all change if a big name comes about, though. Linda won't be able to veto that.