Jeanie Buss Discussion: Following In Dad's Footsteps

Actually, all that is entirely possible.

 

ESPN being right across the street will certainly be picking it up I bet. At least I hope so

 

Me as I typed this reply:



Don't know how we all missed it in plain sight, but after yesterday's repeated debacles completed the culmination of her laughably awful leadership, our owner revealed herself to be Jeanie Dolan (and that might be an insult to the Knicks owner). It's incredible how consistently trust fund babies are so thoroughly incompetent from top to bottom once the shield of Daddy (or Mommy) has been removed.

Let's all think VERY hard about all the major decisions Jeanie has made as controlling owner of the Lakers over the past 7 years or so. Can we point to one that showed the slightest level of savvy leadership or even a rudimentary understanding of running a multi-billion dollar sports franchise? Perhaps there's one or a few that are hard to think of because we're buried in a seemingly endless sea of dog *bleep* decisions over the past couple years, but that it's even this difficult to think of isn't exactly confidence inspiring.

Not to belabor what I'm sure has been discussed here ad nauseam over the past days or weeks, but how--HOW exactly did we get to the point where it feels like the most storied franchise in basketball, and one of the largest sports brands on the planet were run by someone with the business acumen of a small child? Look at the most recent prominent decisions made under Jeanie's watch and tell me how they'd differ from a 13-year old kid empowered to make the same decisions:

-Giving an injured & over-the-hill Kobe a ridiculously overly generous contract as a thank you for his Lakers career. (I love Kobe, but this isn't how you run a successful business.)

-Firing her brother & Mitch (good) and replacing them with one of her closest friends and Kobe's agent who had a combined 0 days of front office experience and weren't even consulted ahead of time as to the intimacy of their working partnership, but rather awkwardly thrust together for reasons unknown by any rational human being (very un-good).

-After this partnership produces one lucky fluke of a past-his-prime Lebron signing here to be in Hollywood on top of many many many questionable personnel decisions, her close friend bounces from the gig publicly in the most embarrassingly unprofessional of ways without even telling her about it first. (This is not someone who even commands the smallest shred of respect, apparently.)

-Magic's departure puts the rare opportunity to take a mulligan on her awful decisions for her basketball front office leadership on an absolute silver platter, and instead of seizing control of a situation spiraling into the abyss by going to the best basketball minds in the business who are ripe for the plucking with a blank check and full autonomy, she instead DOUBLES DOWN on her own incompetence by further empowering 3 human beings that have shown little (generous) or NO (accurate) talent for successfully building an NBA roster. Linda Rambis (main qualification: being Jeanie's bestie...seriously), Kurt Rambis (main qualification: being married to Jeanie's bestie...and getting caught following porn accounts on Twitter a few years back), and Rob Pelinka (main qualification: close proximity to Jeanie's office, kind of looks like Rob Lowe...and manages to be hated by 99% of NBA front office personnel). Great eye for talent there, Jeanie.

-And this all comes to a head yesterday: Proving there's no layup Jeanie can't airball, the complete lack of a power hierarchy in her personally-constructed joke of a front office (the most basic task in running a business) leads to a power struggle that culminates in a qualified coaching candidate who's dream job is coaching the Lakers tossing up his hands and saying "to hell with you dummies" after Jeanie & Pelinka sign off on his hire, but the FREAKING RAMBIS'S drop the veto that they somehow have the power to do and kybashing the hire, thus further embarrassing this already dumpster fire of an organization. And let's not forget Pelinka low-balling Lue somewhere in the middle of all this because he clearly realized he hadn't adequately embarrassed himself thoroughly enough in this latest episode. The coaching fraternity is an extremely tight-nit one, guys. You've literally just told any qualified candidate how crappy we are to work for. Genius level stuff from the short bus brigade.

This clown show all culminated in absolute rock bottom (I hope) for us Lakers fans:



I'm an optimistic person by nature, but there is simply no sugar-coating this dumpster fire: The Los Angeles Lakers will not be an even adequately run organization until Jeanie's power is stripped, or she somehow finds the tiniest shred of gumption & empowers people that aren't her buddies on a personal level, but rather people who have a track record of succeeding at building a well-run NBA franchise. The fact that this even needs to be said and either hasn't occurred to Jeanie or she thinks it doesn't matter boggles the mind. Jeanie, please have the slightest bit of dignity and just sell the team. You're not cut out for this.

 

Saw a tweet yesterday that said “Linda Rambis is exactly who we were afraid Chaz was.”

YEP.

 

Any observer can see Woj has an anti-Lakers agenda after Kobe’s retirement. I don’t know if he’s being stone-walled on info or what, but he clearly has an ax to grind.

Regarding recent reports of the Rambis’ empowerment in the Lakers organization, this is pretty much being universally reported so it’s not like we’re all just taking Woj’s word for it alone.

 

You’re leaving out Jeanie’s biggest Laker idea ever, the Dwight “STAY” billboards. Ahhh, I’ve missed your posts man.

 

Excellent call.

Also, I miss your musk.