When I say Lebron is my favorite player, there is some underlying barely noticeable sarcasm. But it’s there. I feel better now, thanks.
@Mr. Rambis .... are you taking any liberties with information sharing here that could put you at risk with your position at AEG? Hope not, great stuff if this is all legit. Speaking of Ryan West I am always paranoid we are going to screw up and let some other team eventually swoop in and ask permission to talk to him about more money and a big position such as GM. Then that would be 2 Wests we stupidly lost. What's your take on how happy he is with the position, responsibilities and money he has with Lakers going forward?
Wow! Just logged back in and 47 notifications. Don't even get that many on facebook. I'll try to get to as much of this as possible before I'm back to work.
I just looked up "online lakers community" on Google This was the first result, I read some of the content and was very impressed as some of the thoughtful analysis being done!. As I mentioned in my intro, I travel a lot for work and nobody in SoCal that I know really wants to talk about Lakers basketball. Lots of transplants. With all of the drama lately and some of the info I was getting, I was just itching to talk about it with some fans. I am not sure who that is, but no that is not me. I do not use that website. Sounds like if he said that he knows some folks who heard about Ryan's conf. call today. Not surprised it's being reported elsewhere, I'm certainly no oracle here. As soon as I saw the text I copied it here.
Hey vasashi17, it seems like you are being criticized for your support of Magic. Correct me if I'm wrong here. All I'm going to say is I completely understand why you supported him. Magic was an average to above average exec in many cases. He was a big name, commanded respect around the league, and had a good long term plan (in my personal opinion) to bring star free agents to LA. His execution was iffy at times, but as a novice basketball exec, that is to be expected. Plus, we can find blemishes in every basketball exec's track record, especially early on. There were definitely some things he could have done better, like be a little more present and maybe been less harsh in his criticisms of people. But there are a lot of successful as***** (excuse my language) people who do fine in that setting. I also think he may have misunderstood some of the commitments required. When I posted that statement, I was being blunt about why Magic was forced out. But, these sorts of things happen around the NBA all the time. If you guys knew some of the stunts even respected execs pulled, I think you might be shocked! A lot of those behaviors were concerning, but in many ways are seen a lot in the NBA. I actually was okay with Magic, because despite some of the criticisms, he was doing a lot to bring stars to LA. And those free agents don't worry about the media squabblings as much as you or me. The icing on the cake was the harassment article, though, as it represented a huge revenue risk. Without that, he would still be running the show and a lot of this would have never surfaced.
No it is not. But I am not surprised others heard about the call. Hopefully this means I was not too far off base. I hope this puts some people who are unsure about the news at ease a bit too.
No I'm not. At least I don't think so. A lot of these are rumors anyways. I just hear this info in a casual, non work setting since I chat with the AEG guys a lot about random things. I have been working with them a long time. I do not do anything that directly deals the Lakers for my job, but I have visibility into certain things. Such as with New Balance and AEG. But these guys know I'm a die hard Laker fan and will give me info since they know I'm eager and have no patience to wait! Ryan West is okay. The Lakers do not feel he is GM ready material currently, but someday he very well might be. I have not heard anything about him being unhappy. But to be honest, I am not in the know about that as much. AEG doesn't care about guys working for Pelinka on the basketball side. They just care about the business side. Their relationship with Ryan is due to the fact that he bridges the gap to the business side about player endorsements. It's relevant because of AEG's current dealings with New Balance. Whether it is Ryan today doing that, or tomorrow someone else, does not matter to them. I will say Ryan is good at his job, from what I hear others say about him. Lakers do not want to let him go.