Los Angeles Lakers have gone through some of the toughest times in franchise history. For the first time in Los Angeles Lakers team history, they missed the playoff for two consecutive years.
Kobe Bryant is only getting older, their prize rookie last season, Julius Randle, missed the entire season with a broken leg and they seem to be struggling to land anyone in 2015 free agency.
No need to worry though, it appears that the initial plan by the Buss siblings, Jeanie and Jim, is still in place. If the Lakers aren’t serious contenders, Jim Buss will step down. They just finished year one and ended up in the lottery. Jim, who is part-owner of the team and the vice president of basketball operations, is still on the clock for two more years.
Following from Baxter Holmes of ESPN.
When asked about that deadline in a radio appearance with KPCC on Thursday, Jeanie Buss reiterated that timeline is still in place and if the Lakers don’t reach their goals by then, she’s ready for change.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Buss said. “This is my job. I’m part-owner of the team, but I’m also the president. The Buss family is the majority owner but we have other partners as well who are also shareholders, and I have an obligation to them. Would I make those changes? Yes. My brother understands that we have to continue to strive for greatness and I think he would be the first one to feel that he would need to step down if he can’t get us to that point.”
“Well, I asked my brother, how long until we’re back into contention? And when I say ‘contention,’ that means past the second round, so either the Western Conference Finals or the NBA Finals,” she said. “And he told me that it would take three years to rebuild it. So we’ve just finished Year 1 of that three-year [plan]. So we have two more years until he feels that we’ll be back into going past the second round in the playoffs.”
For Lakers nation, there is officially a man who will take the fall if all goes horribly. Hopefully for Buss, the team will turn it around in a hurry and he will take the praise for bringing the team back to prominence.
It’s not like he’s not trying. He’s landed two potentially great lottery picks in Julius Randle and D’Angelo Russell and he’s been doing all he can to talk to all of the top free agents available to try and bring them to Los Angeles.
That just doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. ‘Come to the Lakers’ won’t be getting players to move off to Los Angeles like they would back in the day. The Lakers will always, somehow find a way to come out of this bottomless pit of misery. Hopefully for Jim Buss, it’s within the next two seasons.
