With Magic Johnson holding an advisory role for the Lakers in the past week, however, he predicted that more growing pains await. “It’s going to take three to five years to get them back rolling again,” Johnson said in an interview on CBS This Morning that aired on Monday morning. “If we’re patient and we develop our own players, in today’s NBA it’s different than when I played. you have to develop your own players because free agent movement is not like it used to be. You have to make sure you hit a home run with the players you do draft and keep the players you have on your roster.”
Tim Kawakami: At this point I think that Jerry is going to be back beyond this season. Maybe it's going to be a year-by-year thing from here on. Maybe it will be a slighty different role. He's 78. He had to go to the hospital recently. But I don't think the Lakers for Jerry right now is the odds-on at all, just because the Magic Johnson thing it's a different set-up.
Buss agreed and asked to schedule a meeting after the All-Star break where he and general manager Mitch Kupchak could explain their decision-making over the past few seasons. "I'm taking Magic at face value, that he's here to help," Jim Buss told ESPN. "He's one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Who wouldn't value his opinion? I'm excited to work with Magic for years to come."
As the lead on business affairs, Jeanie Buss does largely stay away from the on-court product. She has said publicly that she often learns of the team's basketball decisions via news reports or texts from her brother. Sources said Kupchak rarely, if ever, communicates with Jeanie Buss, believing he reports only to her brother. That funnel effect has essentially given Kupchak incredible power over decision-making, with only one boss to hold him accountable for successes and failures.
ESPN.com reported a dinner between Jeanie Buss, her longtime close friend Linda Rambis (now a team executive and the wife of former Lakers’ coach and player Kurt Rambis), and Lakers Hall of Famer Magic Johnson at the team’s game at Staples Center last Tuesday with the Denver Nuggets. Maybe it was just dinner. But everything is magnified now. “I think she is still gathering information,” one friend of Jeanie Buss texted Sunday night.
Los Angeles can still easily pursue a max free agent next summer, even with the new contracts on the books, but Mozgov hasn’t been an interior force on offense, and Deng doesn’t look like the Deng of old on defense. In the NBA’s new TV-contract soaked world, the deals aren’t indefensible; But they haven’t been very impactful, either, and that’s something Jeanie Buss is considering as she contemplates her brother’s future. “She’s hearing from enough people that those two signings were not strong enough signings,” said one person who’s spoken with her recently.
Jeanie Buss is sharp and patient, and GM Mitch Kupchak remains well-regarded around the league. Walton, beloved in L.A., put a strong, teaching staff together, and will get every chance to succeed. But how long will it take for the Lakers to be the Lakers again?