Losing Isn’t Going to Be Fun for Anyone
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While Jerry Buss managed to avoid interviews all last year, he turned Phil Jackson, the greatest winner in NBA coaching history, into a lame duck.
Although Jackson took the Lakers to the Finals four times in five years, according to Buss, “It was a situation that had run its course.”
Now that sellouts at Staples are no longer de rigueur and the Lakers fight just to get in the playoffs, Buss is available for weddings and bar mitzvahs to tell Laker fans that he and Kobe Bryant “want to win desperately.”
Huh?
Bryant says he is having more fun, but the tragedy is that he didn’t expend this type of energy and effort inside Jackson’s triangle.
News conference or not, there is a difference between having fun and competing for championships. It’s too bad Buss wasn’t open to discussing this in public last year.
Alan Elliott
Los Angeles
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Jerry Buss got his wish when he traded Shaq to let Kobe rule the Laker roost; these Lakers aren’t the Bulls.
They’re worse.
Patrick McMahon
Hermosa Beach
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