There are a multitude of question marks surrounding the franchise which will ultimately end up shaping the future of the Purple and Gold.
Ownership
The Lakers are in a state of flux at the very top. Indeed, Jeanie Buss, the team’s executive vice president of business operations, recently created a stir when excerpts of her memoir Laker Girl surfaced.
She essentially announced that her brother, Jim Buss, bamboozled Phil Jackson (her fiancé) when the Lakers were looking for a new head coach early in the 2012-13 season (h/t Los Angeles Daily News):
I felt that I got played. Why did they have to do that? Why did Jim pull Phil back into the mix if he wasn't sincere about it? Phil wasn't looking for the job, and then he wasted 36 hours of his life preparing for it when they were never in a million years going to hire him anyway. How do you do that to your sister? How do you do that to Phil Jackson? I hope the flirtation with Phil wasn't just a PR stunt. I still can't get my head around the whole story.
As the story goes, Jim Buss and general manager Mitch Kupchak held a meeting with Jackson and gave him a deadline to decide whether he wanted to coach the Lakers. The Los Angeles brass then called Jackson prior to the target date and told him that Mike D’Antoni was the Lakers' new head coach.
One can debate whether or not the front office made the right decision in their coaching search, but the execution was incredibly poor. It created somewhat of a rift in the Buss family and certainly gives the appearance that a dysfunctional bunch directs the Lakers.
Coaching Staff
D’Antoni struggled to capitalize on the talents of his best players during the 2012-13 campaign. The former Phoenix Suns coach made a series o...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
