“We talked about it as a family,” Jeanie Buss said Monday of Jim Buss’ stance. “My brother spoke about it publicly. It is something that I think he’s very sincere in when he says that if he can’t get this team to where we’re competitive, being in the playoffs, second round, competing for the Western Conference final. He would feel that he isn’t living up to the job that my father left to him, and he [Jim] made it clear if he couldn’t do the job that he would step aside and make sure that somebody would come in and do that because that’s how much he loves the Lakers. That’s how much my family loves the Lakers.”
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Los Angeles Lakers co-owner Jeanie Buss says that Phil Jackson, her fiancé and the president of the Knicks, will not be leaving New York to rejoin the Lakers. "No. To visit, yes ... but in terms of basketball, he's committed to New York for many years," Buss said Monday on ESPN Radio's Beadle and Shelburne Show. "He's building something there. He has a mission, he's on that journey to get the team back to where he believes it can be and it will be. He's a former Knick ... he loves New York, he loves the fans, he wants to make them proud."
Jackson has three seasons remaining on his five-year deal with the Knicks. Speculation about Jackson's potential return to Los Angeles will likely continue because his contract contains an opt-out clause after the 2016-17 season, according to ESPN's Chris Broussard.
The juggling act was so tough, he said, and something he thought that the Lakers front office had seen going into the season as well. In fact, he thought the two sides agreed when he was hired that it would take a few years to turn the team around. So when he was let go, he said he was “blindsided.” “But I have no ill-will for the organization,” he said. “I still love the Lakers organization and I wish them all the best.”
Jim Buss, part-owner and executive vice president of basketball operations, could well be gone next summer and so could Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak. Could Phil Jackson return? Such questions loom heavy over the Lakers' future. "The number one thing is this," said one source familiar with both the Warriors and Lakers. "The Lakers are dysfunctional as an organization. A coach can't change this."
The source told SNY.tv that Ollie -- who led UConn to the 2014 NCAA championship -- would want at least some involvement in player personnel decisions with the Lakers. "He's gotta be involved in player personnel decisions," the source said. "Mitch Kupchak has to be willing to involve him in player personnel. He has to have a say-so in that."
The Lakers’ boss discussed the state of the Lakers at length with USA TODAY Sports in her visit on the NBA A to Z podcast recently, and this much is clear about the way she sees their world. There is no change to the timeline that Jim first shared in April of 2014, when he indicated that he would resign if the team wasn’t contending for a title by next season. Since then, it has become clear that Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak would likely be part of this equation as well.
Translation: despite recent speculation that she might expedite the timeline in order to bring her fiancé, New York Knicks president Phil Jackson, back to the Lakers, there is no such covert plan as it relates to next summer. Jackson signed a five-year, $60 million deal with the Knicks in March of 2014. “It really isn’t about trying to get him back here (to the Lakers),” Buss said. “He is happy with what he is doing, and he … is up for the (Knicks) challenge, and he’s seeing the results of the work that he’s put in. But he has a ways to go.”
