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Can you imagine the boner on this er after he depressed the send button? Probably pole vaulted the rest of the day.
The kids won't give it up. Me? I wouldn't either. I'd take root. You'd have to get LAPD SWAT + the National Guard.
The Lakers are no longer the Lakers.
The basketball world knows it, their front office needs to own it, and the Buss children need to start acting like it if they have any chance of becoming the Lakers again.
The Lakers are no longer the Lakers, and have not been since their last championship in 2010 coincided with the beginning of the physical decline of owner Jerry Buss. When Buss died in February 2013, an aura of invincibility died with him, and the family's ensuing efforts to imitate his giant footsteps, instead of forging their own path in basketball's new era, have resulted only in embarrassment and defeat.
Buss was a charismatic visionary whose genius gave the team a golden credibility that resonated throughout the league. People paid attention. People felt lucky to be in his presence. When Buss was running things, it seemed that whoever the Lakers wanted, the Lakers got, from the coin flip draft of Magic Johnson, to the signing of Shaquille O'Neal, to the trades for Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol.
Now, when the Lakers talk, those same people just shrug and turn away, witness the case of LaMarcus Aldridge, the former Portland Trail Blazers power forward who was the free-agent centerpiece to the Lakers reloading efforts this summer.
When the news broke Saturday that Aldridge was going to sign with San Antonio, it marked the third consecutive off-season that the Lakers failed to convince an All-Star to wear their uniform. First there was the billboard-size failure to retain Dwight Howard, and, while that failure was applauded in this space, the Lakers really did want him. Then last season they failed to sell not only a guy from across the country named Carmelo Anthony, but also a guy in their own locker room named Gasol.
Now, they lose out on Aldridge, the most compelling of the humiliations, not only because they were one of two favorites to win his services, and not even because he turned them down after two pitch meetings because the first one went so badly. The scariest part of this failure is that they blew it with Aldridge by trying to sell a brand that no longer exists. It was as if the Lakers officially became the last people on Earth to realize they are no longer the Lakers.
They tried to sell Showtime, a marketing and entertainment phenomenon that is available today in all sizes of NBA markets, just ask Kevin Durant. They tried to sell Hollywood, which in today's NBA can happen in Oakland, just ask Steph Curry. They tried to sell Bryant, who attended the first pitch meeting even though he will probably be an active Laker for only another 10 months, and even though his presence insinuates a team power structure that his retirement would make irrelevant.
Only in the end did the Lakers try to sell Aldridge on the future of their basketball. But because they have been bereft of talent since the Buss children handcuffed their roster by giving Bryant a two-year, $48.5-million appreciation contract in December 2013 — once again, living in the age of Jerry Buss — their basketball future is muddled.
And if you don't want to believe some silly sportswriter, check out the credentials of all those players who turned them down this summer even after being personally pitched.
Aldridge lives in Southern California, and has viewed the Lakers closely for nine years in the same conference, and still wouldn't sign here. Greg Monroe, a Detroit Pistons free agent who has never been on a team that has won more than 32 games, didn't consider the Lakers winners and ended up Milwaukee. DeAndre Jordan has watched them from across the hall for seven years, didn't like what he saw, and is now in Dallas.
The courting of Aldridge was as ill-conceived as the master plan that included him. Once again, that plan was based on the Lakers still thinking they were the Lakers.
Flash back to this summer's NBA draft, when the Lakers stunned the basketball world by passing up big man Jahlil Okafor to select guard D'Angelo Russell. When the gold dust settled, the word out of Lakers camp was that they passed on the traditional franchise-changing giant because they were confident they could fill that spot with Aldridge in free agency. In other words, the Russell pick carried an undercurrent of the old Lakers en lement that they can have whoever they want.
Not anymore. The basketball populous doesn't view them as royalty anymore. The players rarely stop to chat with Jack Nicholson anymore. The Laker Girls are in every NBA city. O'Neal is a TV personality, Magic owns a baseball team, Bryant will soon be 37, Jerry West works in Oakland and Phil Jackson is probably still waiting for Jim Buss to call him back.
Once again the Lakers have been reminded by the rest of the league that they are nothing special, which will lead to a third consecutive season that could be something terrible. Their failure to sign Aldridge leaves them stuck with two point guards, an underachieving big man in Roy Hibbert, who basically was run out of Indiana, and little chance of playing beyond April.
It will be emotional watching Bryant's potential last season, and fun to watch Russell, fellow 2014 first-round pick Julius Randle and upstart Jordan Clarkson try to figure it out. But mostly, it will be sad to watch a franchise so rooted in its past that it can't figure out how to create a future.
The best idea to make them the Lakers again is the same idea that many have supported since Jerry Buss' death. Jeanie Buss, who is the club president but defers to brother Jim on basketball matters, needs to take control of the basketball operation and hire some forward thinkers who understand the mind of the modern player and can take the front office into the age of analytics. Jeanie needs to reinvent the brand with less Hollywood glitz and more Hollywood brains, with less sentimentality and more cutting edges.
But Jeanie has said she is going to give her brother two more years to figure it out, apparently basing that timetable on Jim's statement to The Times' Mike Bresnahan last year that he would step down if he didn't turn this team around in three seasons.
That now seems like too much time. One more summer like this should be enough to trigger massive changes, especially since next summer should be a Lakers rebuilding bonanza. That's when Bryant's contract finally comes off the books, leaving the team with heaps of cap space and piles of available money, enough ammunition with enough available free agents — yeah, Durant — to return to greatness.
If Jim Buss can't get it done next summer, he never will. If Jeanie Buss won't make changes necessary after that, she never will.
The Buss family has made such a positive impact on this community for so long, both in the standings and the stands, that so far there has been little public pressure for them to sell the team. But that time could be coming. If next summer does not hold the first fruitful days of a new era, that could be the last straw.
The owners of the Lakers have to figure out a way to turn themselves back into the Lakers again, or their flickering torch needs to be passed to someone who can.
Can you imagine the boner on this er after he depressed the send button? Probably pole vaulted the rest of the day.
The kids won't give it up. Me? I wouldn't either. I'd take root. You'd have to get LAPD SWAT + the National Guard.
The more I think about it, the more plausible it seems that Jerry Buss committed suicide.
Tough times.
What a cluster this has become.
Bend over, I'll let you take root.
No, that was David Robinson before Pop & Duncan.
Omg! It's been 5 entire years since we won a championship! We're supposed to always be good every year!
Welcome to life as a normal NBA fan, Lakerfan. Your bandwagon needed cleansing anyway.
What does the le of the thread say, dummy?
I felt I was in the right, so I jumped.
Courtesy of The Cubes.
No Internet, no Cubes.
No Mr. & Mrs. Cubes, no Cubes.
No Cubby. No Cubes......I saw him one day out on Camelback Road at a resort out there. Girl had to have this moisturizer that was only sold out there in their gift shop. So, 3 times a year I had to journey out there and get it for her. "Can't you do one thing for me, Dale?!?" --- It was quite a walk from the parking lot and I didn't go often enough to remember exactly where this ing gift shop was on the property, so each time was an experience. And they had the place locked up tighter than a Nun's snootch today. So, I'd keep walking twixt locked fence gates until I found one that had not engaged, or, until someone would come out and let me in without looking at me like the white trash I was. One day I'm cussing and walking, walking and cussing, looking up each walkaway to the gate to see if it's open. I look up one walk way and who's comin' out? Cuban, with his wife and children. I kept walking, when it dawned on me it was him. I turn around and turn the corner and pass by him. He was a little alarmed because I'd returned after disappearing for 10 seconds. We met eye, but, said nothing. It was still early enough to stop him. Was I heeled? No. Only Girl goes heeled.
No need to go heeled to get the bulge on a tub like Cubes.
I know, but, it was the monsoon, and I was sweating and I had to get the lotion.
"Why, Mr. Robinson, why did you do this, commit this heinous act?" PPD
"Well, we have this soft seat, you see where only we can do things and the other 29 teams can't. He was going door-to-door canvasing to end that advantage."
"Laker Fan are you?"
"Si'."
Jeanie Buss being the answer
Thebesteva going HAM
Honestly, this is all temporary, but in the mean time it's very funny. The Lakers are sitting in the corner with the dunce hat and everyone is laughing AS THEY SHOULD. This is the point of sports, when your enemy is on top you hate them. When they have fallen you enjoy every minute of it.
But it is still going to take another few years for things to fix themselves in the FO, it might take new ownership or an epiphany by Jim that his name is ruining the Lakers. However, I have no doubt that they will eventually turn to form and not be like the Celtics who went without a championship for 20+ years and only won 1.
Dude why do u keep mentioning me in everything? We're not dating stop tagging me in
Be nice now....Go ahead and let him smell your ..he just wants a whiff..
WTF are you talking about? That might be the first time I've ever tagged you.
This time, the Lakers kids aren't all right, and that's a concern
They lined up dozens deep for tickets in the searing heat, filled the lower bowl of the Thomas & Mack Center with purple and gold, even chanted for Larry Nance Jr. in the pause before the national anthem.
For the thousands of Lakers fans attending their team's third summer league game Monday, it was another night of hope in the desert, another glimpse of promise amid the tumbleweeds, one more chance to believe that this awful off-season has the ingredients to quickly grow into something lush.
Ten minutes later, that earth was scorched with reality.
Boooo.
By the end of the first quarter of their game against the New York Knicks, the Lakers kids had scored two baskets, committed seven turnovers, and were being treated like the adults they are expected to become.
Boooo.
That's right, they were booed, even though it was the middle of July, in the middle of summer league, in the middle of a meaningless game.
Weird? Certainly. Appropriate? Absolutely.
Remember, this is no ordinary Lakers summer league team; this is a group led by three players who might have to lead the real Lakers this season, the youthful remains of the team's failure to sign a meaningful free agent, the main reason for any belief that the Lakers can avoid a third consecutive trip to the lottery. This was a team that was supposed to dominate the summer league scrubs while giving Lakers fans a reason to buy into the future.
So the boos were real, and so were the concerns after a 76-66 loss to the Knicks that reminded everyone of the long and painful process that lies ahead.
D'Angelo Russell, the kid the Lakers surprisingly picked second overall in this summer's draft instead of going with sure bet Jahlil Okafor, is projected to be a great point guard one day. But on Monday he was benched during a late Lakers comeback attempt because he could no longer be trusted with the basketball, having committed twice as many turnovers — eight — as his combined baskets and assist. He has occasionally shown glimpses of his potential during these three summer league games. But with 10 assists and 20 turnovers overall, mostly he has looked like the 19-year-old kid who is trying to pass the ball through windows that don't exist, aiming directly for players who aren't there.
"It's just hard," he said afterward, and it's even harder to watch, especially in the same Las Vegas gymnasium complex where Okafor has looked NBA-ready for the Philadelphia 76ers.
Then there was Julius Randle, the seventh overall pick last summer who missed all but the first game of the season after suffering a broken leg. On Monday he continued to look awkwardly rusty, making only two of eight shots and only showing his strength late with a couple of powerful drives.
"It starts with me, I've got to be better, end of story," said Randle.
Finally, there was Jordan Clarkson, last season's surprise star who has looked years older than his younger teammates this summer. Well, guess what? He's also still growing, as he hit just three of 14 shots while dishing out just one assist even though he spent much of the time with the ball in his hands.
"We have to have better execution of the sets, better poise with the basketball," said Mark Madsen, the team's summer league coach who has watched the Lakers lose two of their three games here. "In transition, we want to push the basketball, but we've got to do it the right way, we've got to do it while maintaining the value of the basketball."
In other words, the kids are acting, like, well, kids, which is something Lakers fans better get used to this season. These guys not only looked like a raggedy college team Monday, but Madsen actually acknowledged that they may have fallen into a college-style trap.
"I gave the guys a day off yesterday, probably a mistake," he said. "The day off in Las Vegas was not a great idea."
Just wondering, how many NBA coaches have ever had to worry about the distractions of a day off anywhere for their teams? This clearly is not your average group, something that will almost certainly lead to a drama-filled run this season once Kobe Bryant and Roy Hibbert and that swaggy guy show up.
When watching these young Lakers struggle to play together Monday, one couldn't help but notice that they aren't the only Lakers group that is disjointed, as a quick check of the courtside spectators perhaps showed a different sort of division.
While all the Knicks officials sat together on one baseline, the Lakers officials were noticeably spread out all over the gym. Jim Buss was courtside, Jeanie Buss was on one baseline hanging out with boyfriend and Knicks President Phil Jackson, and Coach Byron Scott was on the other baseline.
Not that it really mattered but, still, for a front office with a reputation of being increasingly dysfunctional, it might have been nice to see everyone sitting together chatting about their team.
It's only summer league, but the optics weren't great for any of the Lakers on Monday, giving a tad more meaning to a bit of their star rookie's self-evaluation.
"I'm trying to get something out of nothing and it's not there," said Russell.
Only time will tell if the Lakers are trying to do the same thing.
A single girl scout or a gentle breeze could uproot you you old coot
Can't argue with that.
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