Another area we're too damn cheap, apparently Is there one single aspect where we're a Dollar General when it comes to staffing and resources?
Thank you Jeanie for being willing to pay Ham not to coach this team. Job's not done though. Now please don't go cheap on the replacement.
They should have just hired Lue, but they were cheap. Instead they had to pay Vogel’s salary while he was gone for the ‘22/‘23 extension he got, and now they have to pay Ham’s salary for 2 more years. STOP BEING CHEAP, coaching is incredibly important, find the right one and pay them what they deserve.
I sure hope Jeanie and the rest of the FO have learned their lesson with being cheap when it comes to coaches.
As I mentioned the other day .... it's an oft repeated "myth" here that Jerry Buss spared no expense to have the best basketball people running his franchise. Sharman had already been 3 years in the GM position having been hired by Cooke. And at least part of the reason West finally left, on top of clashing with Phil and not liking the dynamic with him and the boss's daughter romantically involved soon after he got here .... was that Buss was underpaying West for the great GM he was, and Jerry had seen Buss take care of Magic with the unheard of then 20 years at 1M per deal. "Buss preferred to invest the team's money in players, but he also underpaid Jerry West, which (in part) led to the loss of one of the best front-office minds in the industry."
I’m sure all these people have personal issues with the Lakers and none of these things are true. Everything is fine. We’re all just overreacting. Hurley sucked. And just wait until LeBron leaves. Then we will really show them.
Woooo!! .... it's been way too long since prevailing mood was "the sky is falling" .... 5 days back to early Thursday June 6 prior to Woj's stink "bomb" or whatever the **** that coverage was. From wherever it came. Go LB!!
i'm not sure if this is a shot at me or others who question guys like anthony irwin's agenda, but pincus doesn't really say anything shocking here, nor does he really present new information. and i agree with his general premise. we're definitely cheap. i think he actually sells short how cheap we are, tbh. he mentions we spent on russ and are in the luxury tax, but not that we had to choose between THT and caruso and that we let bamba and beasley just expire instead of holding on to the salary slots for trade purposes like any of the big spending teams would certainly have done. if any of these passionate fans/writers want to inspire change, they need to dig up facts and make them known. find the budgets/organizational structures other teams have for things like advance scouting, analytics, administrative support staff, medical staff, etc. compare them to ours. compare and contrast our front office structure with other nba teams' structures (i.e., why doesn't rob have a partner to work with? don't most teams have a gm and president of bb ops or some such that work together and have complementary strengths?). i think a lot of the reporting around the team is actually really lazy (the daily hour-long podcasts amount to fake hustle, imo--they just repeat the same three minutes of non-content twenty times), and thus they're failing at their stated purpose. if anthony irwin or eric pincus just really want things to be better, they should be putting out real, verifiable information that will provoke real change. but a lot of internal murmurs and he said she said with an obvious angle isn't going to do anything. i'm as frustrated with anyone with how things are going, but if my job was reporting on the lakers, i wouldn't do it like these guys.
Yeah, great take. Still nice to put it out there and make them feel some heat. Hopefully they'll sell sooner rather than later
Well first, my comment was very tongue in cheek. But no, I wouldn't lump you in with the group I was teasing there. We don't agree on everything, but I'd say we do agree on most things with the team. However, there is a group of the fandom across the board that does seem to always act like fans are overreacting no matter how clear an L the franchise is taking on something and that's the direction my snark there was pointed. With the various reporters, unfortunately the market has simply changed. As much as some of us miss straightforward reporting, the ship seems to have sailed. The algorithms simply don't care why any of us clicked on a link, just that we did. So, naturally, some are going to choose the best way to draw engagement. I think guys like Pincus do try to present as much information as they can, but are walking the tightrope of trying to create something fans will actually read and not completely burning whatever source they are getting their info from. I do think the media as a whole could do a better job of presenting things to us. I also think those articles / posts would only generate a handful of clicks so I do get why they are so rare these days.
i only said it because i'm probably one of the most positive members remaining (internet RIP to realdeal), LT excepted. and i tend to think there's way too much "sky is falling" stuff from lakers fans in general. i think part of my perspective here is that i follow other teams that aren't as historically successful and view a lot of the rage around here as sort of silly and entitled. and maybe that's what draws people to this franchise as fans, so it's a thing that will always exist. i guess i just thought living through the post-achilles kobe era might reset some expectations, etc. anyway, regarding the reporting, i get that they can't burn their sources, and i also get that making a living writing is hard. there's not a lot of reward for writing the kind of piece i suggested, so i get why nobody does it. i'm just saying that if these guys were really into it for why they say they are, that's what they'd do--basically real investigative reporting on the subject about which they're passionate. and maybe that notion as applied to a sports team is just incredibly stupid, as if you're going to expend that effort, do it about something more important like political corruption or environmental damage, etc. anyway, because my priorities suck, i'd definitely read a long-form piece comparing how different nba teams run their organizations and where the lakers fall into that picture. hell, others may be, too. moneyball was made into a movie!
Cuban selling the Mavs has to be a red flag for whoever the Buss business managers are. Team valuations are have skyrocketed but with revenues shaky (not sure international markets will offset the loss of TV/cable monopoly), really doesn't seem like ownership is the right call unless you're in the true height of the megarich. I get it the Buss family wouldn't have access to same social capital in LA as they wouldn't be known as the owners of the Lakers but they also don't seem to have enough money to run a first rate organization anymore (best medical staff, scouting, analytics team, etc.)
many are expecting a season of hyperinflation in the coming years for a number of reasons If so, maybe he felt better about diversifying into a number of different assets vs tie so much up in one place. Cuban brought respectability to Mavs basketball, won a title, but also had a great run of 50+ win seasons. They were always competitive, and going to games in that arena was fun. Very entertaining - never a dull moment.
