It makes perfect sense. That being said, she STILL chooses the Rambii as two of her most trusted basketball minds to confer with, so I’m betting she’s not smart enough to change it up. She’s all about “loyalty and friendship,” regardless of how much damage it does to the Franchise. I don’t think she’s going to change this fundamental way in which she operates. This is why I’m hoping for a massive outside offer. There is a way to significantly improve the FO that has been discussed here before. She wouldn’t have to backstab the Rambii either. Just bring in someone from the outside who has a positive track record of team building, and create a new position for him. She could keep her friends on the payroll while taking this new hire’s advice more often on personnel decisions.
You’re absolutely right. The wrong people are in the top positions. I also remember it reported that Joey and Jesse wanted larger roles and didn’t get them. If you’re going to go with nepotism, at least go with the family that has shown the most promise.
Yes, yes, yes. Couple that with what should now be gospel-level wisdom: do NOT consult Lebron or AD on ANYTHING that has to do with personnel. Oh yea, a 3rd thing: how the hell do you get Westbrick off this team? My gawd, can you imagine buying out a dude who's set for what? $47mil? Have a bad feeling that any trade that gets Russ off the roster will leave with no first round picks until 2035.
It's like I just said in another thread, these guys have proven they have an eye for talent so lock them up, get someone else smart enough (not Rob obviously) to make contracts with them. We could have Caruso still on the books for cheap next season had he given him a 4 year deal. The only one they have splurged on so far is THT and that happened too early because we failed to get him on a longer deal earlier. We could have him and Caruso on cheap contracts right now going into this season. I mean, worst case on these low-end deals you can waive them if need be. We could have them both for 6 mil and Kuzma and KCP for 27, all 4 of them for 33 mil added to AD and LeBron and there is your defensive core right there. That's 115.5 on those 6 right there (assuming we had never signed Westbrook). No Deng dead money anymore so that leaves about 5.5. cap space (based on 121 cap for next season), pretty much taken up by Reeves, Johnson and Gabriel. And the MLE (probably could use the full 10mil MLE in this case for say, Monk) 2 more role players and the rest vet mins. Talking about a squad full of wing and guard defenders. exactly what we needed all season.
Kurt is a special kind of moron. Hasn’t earned anything beyond his playing days besides the last assistant role on the bench at best, yet he walks around reveling in his unearned power, shoving his crap opinions on coaching, personnel moves, etc wherever he can. Real special kind of moron, and our owner empowers his dumb a**.
He's only going to get more power too. That's a few paths for Rob having a successful off-season, but there's 100s of paths for complete failure. Based on his track record and the hole we're in, this is most likely going to go down in flames. Rob will take that bullet, then Kurt runs the whole f***ing show.
Well, some of the way you guys like to build rosters, trade stars, draft the Lonzo's, Kurt will be like some of you running basketball operations.
There’s a NFL rumour going around that a Wal-Mart Heir is planning to offer $4 billion to buy the Denver Broncos. In America, football is king, but in terms of global brand recognition... the Lakers are much much bigger and are synonymous with NBA basketball internationally. When people overseas think NBA, Lakers are usually one of the top things that pop into the brains of the casual fan. Having said that, if the Broncos can fetch $4 billion... I know Forbes had valued the Lakers at $5.5 billion recently, but I think if the Buss family were to really consider selling the team it would be a higher number than 5.5 billion. I’m thinking a number closer to $7 billion. This is the crown jewel of the NBA we are talking about. There would absolutely be a lineup of billionaires having a bidding war to have the opportunity to buy the Lakers. AEG has the first right of refusal, but after that I can totally imagine guys like Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, and several different ownership groups look to see if they can buy the Lakers. Depending on the demand, $7 billion may actually be on the low end of offers. Why I bring this up is because I’m reminded while watching the hbo show “winning time”, the Buss family is truly a mom and pop shop. The Buss family, even with the big spectrum sports net deal, don’t have the cash flow to openly pay ridiculous luxury tax numbers like other billionaire owners can. In fact, after all operating costs and paying themselves a salary every year, I actually wonder how much money is left over at the end of the year. I suspect it’s not some shocking amount where the team can pay $30-50 million in luxury tax and not even blink. So the Buss Family Trust consists of the 6 Buss kids and they own 66% of the Lakers. If they get an offer of $7 billion for the team, the family trust would get 66% of that. That’s about 4.62 billion to split amongst the 6 of them (before taxes).... which means about $770 million for each Buss kid. If/when the day comes where such an offer is presented, I bet the family becomes split on deciding whether to sell or not and there might actually be enough support to sell to make it happen. The kids I think who would be under the “don’t sell under any cost” camp would be Jeanie, Jesse, and Joey. I can absolutely see Jim, Johnny... and maybe Janie want to sell and take the money. Jim had been outcasted, Johnny and Jamie doesn’t seem very involved with the Lakers and they could see the money as giving them access to the wealth to do what they truly want. Maybe a few years down the road, Jeanie also loses the support of Joey and Jesse because they are sick of Jeanie empowering Rambii over them and say to heck with it all... let’s sell and all have close to a billion dollars each.
i still find it hard to believe that they have a 66% ownership stake in a franchise valued at 5.5 billion and haven't been able to leverage that into obscene personal wealth, the likes of which renders the luxury tax costs fairly irrelevant. money begets money unless you're a total moron. wait....
I wonder how the Buss trust was written? Is it a simple majority, does Jeanie’s vote carry more weight or does the decision to sell have to be unanimous? It all depends how Dr. Buss structured the trust.
