Jim Buss was handed his father’s team, but not his expertise.
Former Lakers great Magic Johnson is blaming the team’s current owner, son of the legendary Dr. Jerry Buss, for the team’s recent struggles. The Lakers, under Mike D’Antoni, have lost 12 of their past 13 games and fallen to 14th place in the Western Conference at 14-25. The team missed the playoffs just twice under Jerry’s ownership, beginning in 1979. The patriarch died last February.
“This is what happens when you make the wrong decisions, two coaching wrong decisions, giving Steve Nash that deal, it’s backfired,” said Johnson, the Dodgers part owner, during a meeting at the Los Angeles Times.
“The biggest problem they’re going to have right now … you’ve got to get a guy like Jerry West to be the face of the team. … You’ve got to have someone helping Jim. He’s got to quit trying to prove a point to everybody that he can do it on his own, get his ego out of it, and just say, ‘Let me get someone beside me to help achieve the goals I want.’ ”
Johnson added: “Dr. Buss was smart. He said, ‘I’m going to get the best dude, Jerry West, and he helped me achieve my goals. Then I went and got the best coach [Phil Jackson].’ He wanted to work with the best.”
West, the former Lakers general manager, is currently a consultant with the Warriors. Johnson said he thinks current Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak is doing all that he can, but Johnson believes he is limited because he doesn’t have any power under Jim Buss.
“You need to get someone like Jerry to be the face, so agents are comfortable, players are comfortable, knowing the Lakers are going for a championship. … Look what Pat Riley did in Miami,” Johnson said about his former coach who helped convince LeBron James and Chris Bosh to join forces with Dwyane Wade. “If Pat Riley’s not there, you don’t get LeBron to buy in.
“Everybody’s telling me free agents don’t want to sign [with the Lakers]. … They’re looking at the Lakers now as a team that’s dysfunctional; who’s their leader, who’s the guy?”
Right now, not Kobe Bryant, who has been limited to six games this season due to injuries. The team has also been without Nash, Steve Blake, Jordan Farmar and Xavier Henry.
Johnson said, with the team in such disarray, Bryant should be in no rush to return from his knee injury.
“What is he coming back to?” Johnson asked. “He’s not going to be able to stop the pick and roll, all the layups the Lakers are giving up. He’s been hurt twice, give him the whole year to get healthy.”
The Lakers legend also said the team shouldn’t have acted so quickly in re-signing the aging star. Bryant signed a two-year, $48.5-million contract extension in November. His contract would have expired at the end of this season.