As communicated earlier this year, Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss continues to rely on the advice of former team president Magic Johnson and her longtime friends Kurt and Linda Rambis. ESPN reports that former head coach Phil Jackson and current Los Angeles All-Star forward LeBron James have also spoken to Buss about the personnel decision.
In a recent interview with The Athletic’s Sam Amick podcast, Bass talked about her continued connection to these advisors.
Buss seems to disprove the notion that Rambises advising her is a relatively new phenomenon.
“Then there was a lot of interest in the roles that Linda and Kurt (Rambis) played. Where did they come from (laughs)? It seemed like they (always) ) not there. Like I hid them for decades and stuff (still laughing). So I don’t know what caused this, what made people curious.”
Rambis certainly wasn’t the Lakers’ trusted voice for decades to come through. He was the head coach of the Timberwolves from 2009-2011, leading the team to a 32-132 record. He returned to the Lakers as an assistant coach for one season in 2013-14, then served as associate head coach with the Knicks (under team president Phil Jackson) in 2014-16, and served as interim head coach in 2016 ( The team went 9-19) before being relegated again by Jackson to Jeff Hornacek’s associate head coach in 2016-18. To be fair, Rambis was an assistant coach on Jackson’s Lakers championship teams in 2002, 2009, and 2010, and an executive consultant on the 2000, 2001, and 2020 championship teams. . Given his shortcomings as head, it’s unclear exactly how valuable his advice is. To be fair, his advisory abilities certainly won him a lot.
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While he’s one of the best players in Lakers history, Johnson’s record as the club’s coach and executive is more checkered. Johnson went 5-11 as the club’s head coach in 1994-95, including a 10-game losing streak. Johnson succeeded Jenny’s brother Jim Buss as team president in February 2017. Johnson’s biggest success as an executive was joining the team that successfully signed LeBron James in free agency in 2018.
LA Sports has a mediocre draft record with 12 All-Stars and five Lakers championships. The current president, Rob Pelinka, was the team general manager under Johnson. In 2017, Los Angeles picked solid 3-and-D point guard Lonzo Ball with the No. 2 overall pick from UCLA and Utah’s eventual championship role player Kay with the No. 27 pick. Al Kuzma. Ball was drafted ahead of All-Stars like Jayson Tatum (No. 3), Donovan Mitchell (No. 13) and Bam Adebayo (No. 14) , but he has developed into a productive two-way player. Orleans Pelicans and Chicago Bulls. His knee injury limited his growth.
The team completely changed the following season, drafting skilled center Moritz Wagner at No. 25 from Michigan and small forward Svi from Kansas at No. 47 Mykhailiuk. The team also tried and failed to trade Anthony Davis in 2018-19, creating toxic locker room chemistry. The Lakers will miss the playoffs 37-45, marking the end of LeBron’s eight-straight NBA Finals run. Johnson will continue to announce his withdrawal from the team over the air without notifying Buss. He later called Pelinka a “backstab.” It’s hard to know what exactly Johnson’s intentions are at the moment, with Pelinka still in power.
Although he won 11 championships as a coach, Jackson’s three years with the Knicks were abysmal as chief decision maker, at least in 2015 drafting eventual All-Star big man Kristaps Outside of Polzis. Bass wants this circle of friends to give her advice, not some of the best and brightest basketball minds in the world, no matter how their Lakers have been in different roles in the past, which is somewhat confusing. This “Lakers exceptionalism” could hurt the team.
Here’s what Bass had to say about her conversation with Johnson and Jackson:
“When I rely on Magic Johnson, when I When relying on Phil Jackson, that’s the advice I get in the decision-making process. It’s not magic that decides who we’re going to hire as coach. It’s not Phil telling me who to hire as coach. It’s talking about the process, talking about Experience, what happens when you deal with issues like this. These are just people (she believes). Everyone has them, the people in your life you believe in, you believe (and) you know will give you a straight answer , (and) there’s no separate agenda when they talk to you. (You know) they’ll give it straight to you.”
The problem at the time was that people Shocked, Buss understandably relies almost exclusively on former Lakers superstars, even though there’s no evidence they’re particularly good at talent assessment in the modern era.
