Through some trial and error, the Los Angeles Lakers can finally enter a season confident about the roster that’s been assembled.
Rob Pelinka has had a few gaffes managing the team, though he’s still got the support of governor Jeanie Buss. Although winning a championship in 2020 was a major accomplish, Jeanie previously expressed how disappointed she was that Los Angeles struggled to compete afterwards.
While the on-court product hasn’t always been there, the Lakers have been able to hang their hat on their draft record. Los Angeles has managed to find several impact players in the draft and Jeanie made sure to credit her brothers Joey and Jesse Buss for that, via Mark Medina of Sportskeeda:
I have to give a lot of credit to my brother, Joey Buss, who oversees our development with our G League team and my brother, Jesse Buss, who is in charge of all of our scouting. He has done a terrific job not only with our draft picks, but also identifying players that aren’t drafted and bringing them to our G-League team, our summer league team and giving players opportunities to be seen.
Even if they get called up by another team, we’re happy for those players that we’ve identified. Giving talent opportunities to make our league is important to us. We will continue to do that. They have identified players that fit the system and the style of play that Darvin Ham wants to play.
That’s the influence that Phil Jackson had on me in terms of how you run a basketball team. The first decision that needs to be made is what kind of style of play do you want to play?
Between Rob, Joey, Jesse, Coach Ham, we’re all on the same page as to what type of Laker basketball we want to play. When you’re all in agreement and in unison, that’s when great things happen. That’s when players get an opportunity to shine. That led to the kind of success that we saw and will continue to build on from the end of last season.
Austin Reaves, who went undrafted, is perhaps the pinnacle of the Buss brothers’ work though they should also receive praise for identifying players like Max Christie as talents to lean on down the line. Joey and Jesse normally operate in the background, so it was good for Jeanie to give them their due for helping turn the franchise around.
Jeanie Buss commends Darvin Ham for handling ups and downs in his first year as head coach
Aside from the Buss brothers, Jeanie also praised Darvin Ham for handling his first year as a head coach about as well as anyone could have hoped for.
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