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Magic Johnson's impromptu press conference prior to the final game of the Los Angeles Lakers season on Tuesday was another appropriate event for an organization consuming its own story. The biggest smile in basketball was leaving his position as team president because the job was not fun. Millions of fans would have quoted "directing my favorite team" as their dream concert, but the overall assessment of this role by Magic is correct. The leadership of basketball in an NBA team is tedious.
For every LeBron James recruit, there are a dozen uninteresting tasks, ranging from mundane transactions to building systems in a front office. You can not celebrate the success of a transcendent talent in the sport you love, but also a tweet without violating an obscure status of the collective agreement. When Serena Williams calls, you are reduced to saying to her, "Wait, I have the NBA General Counsel online." Then there is the huge volume of information management, personnel management – you even have to manage your general manager. In the end, Magic logically reasoned that he preferred to be a mogul rather than a hostage.
He was so overwhelmed by the prospect of announcing the news to the owner, Jeanie Buss, that he decided to completely give up a one-on-one conversation for the benefit of the media gathered at Staples Center. Buss and the rest of the Lakers principles learned that Johnson had resigned like everyone else. Johnson's stifled farewell speech, in which he said that he far preferred to be a big brother, was further testimony that the family should not always work together. If an employee is so paralyzed by the turmoil to compromise a professional relationship with a personal choice, chances are that he was hired for the wrong reasons in the first place.
Although this is not the most dignified departure, Johnson's resignation offers Buss the opportunity to correct the worst instincts of his franchise: his lazy legacy fixation at a expertise prevails.
Before drawing up a list of potential substitutes, Buss must audit his franchise, which has lost more games than any other NBA team in the last six seasons. It should list recent successes and failures as well as short and long term goals. But then, it's time to look outside: identify a handful of rival organizations in the NBA that she admires and find out how they do it.
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Although nothing has lost for the Lakers' front office, Buss carries a good dose of goodwill around the league. Unlike some of his big-market siblings, Buss acknowledged that the critical situation of the small-business franchise was at the heart of the NBA's core mission. Its noblesse oblige has indicated that what is good for the NBA is for the Lakers, and it's a feeling that has not been lost for other owners and rulers.
Whether it's San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder or the Boston Celtics, Buss should study the anatomy of these organizations and the philosophies at work. Why did they succeed from a basketball and leadership perspective over a long period of time? How are decisions made and how were these systems and processes created? How did the Celtics avoid the parochial thought that afflicted the Lakers, even though they installed a franchise legend at the forefront of their leaders and remained devoted to their past?
If history serves as a guide – and this is generally the case for the Lakers – Buss will be tempted to look inside the Lakers' family to fill the void of their leaders. She could continue to rely on Rob Pelinka, Kobe Bryant's agent and long-time Lakers confidant, who has served as chief executive for the past two years.
Or she could end this recursive cycle now. While the Lakers behaved like an island tribe that confers power and membership only to people with bloody origins, the rest of the NBA has produced a generation of dynamic managerial talents with varied skills, experiences and sensitivities different. It is curious to note that the only franchise in the NBA to be able to assert its point of view legitimately anyone has never appealed to this broad base of trust. This massive global brand never thought that the best leaders of an entity at one time would come from other places and traditions. It is normal to hire people from the outside because establishing a climate of trust with strangers is an important entrepreneurial skill. It could even be good for business.
There are few executives in the NBA who do not want to listen to the Lakers. If Buss wants to take the temperature of RC Buford (San Antonio), Bob Myers (Golden State), Sam Presti (OKC), Masai Ujiri (Toronto), Neil Olshey (Portland) or David Griffin (formerly the general manager of Cleveland), have all the powers to do it. It is unlikely that the work of the Lakers is attractive to all. For example, no organization better reflects its leader than the Thunder reflects Presti, and it's not something that it could replicate in Los Angeles. Buford has little to gain from an organization that is already ten years behind.
Myers presided over the most prolific dynasty of a generation with a touch of ease, although he was not certain that his current employer would allow him to be attracted to a rival. Griffin has built a championship around LeBron James, which is presumably the aspiration of Buss. Ujiri and Olshey are in complete control of all aspects of basketball operations, from scouting to homeowner relations, are competent in messaging and listening, understand the entire business and have managed to standardize their markets.
These are just six prestigious names, but everywhere in the league, from Salt Lake to Brooklyn, the creative wickets are flourishing. The Clippers could be a source of ridicule at Buss Email correspondence with his courtiers, but if the Lakers basketball operations department resembled that of the Clippers during the opening night of 2019, Buss would be in a very solid position. They would be well equipped to deal with the many decisions of this franchise, from recruiting talent this summer to managing Brandon Ingram's troubling health situation, to identify, more broadly, one of the many routes available to the Lakers. is the good.
Hiring an external candidate who has been successful elsewhere is relatively simple, but allow the person to install a valuable structure that could go against the way you understand that the Lakers must be managed – how the Lakers have always been run – will be a challenge to Buss's inclinations. How this was done with Showtime or Kobe, or how it should be done to someone who feels like a family, is not a criterion for 2020.
The Lakers season is over. And after?
Whether it's one of those big names or any number of younger, lesser known front-office opinion leaders who would be an upgrade, this person will install protocols for tasks such as recruitment of free agents, hiring standards, player development, aggregation of information. , and other trivial things that, according to those who know how the Lakers work, have been done on an ad hoc basis for too long. Fancies or impressions of how a scenario will unfold in the media will not be reflected in these systems – and the property must be perfectly comfortable with that.
Then there is the LeBron James affair, which exerts tremendous weight as the greatest strength of the sport since Michael Jordan. His well-being and performance dictates the team's atmosphere and success, but Buss must allow any new basketball leader to carry out his duties with the belief that LeBron, who counts a lot, is temporary, at the helm. reverse of the Lakers. If Buss decides that his main goal is to create the franchise for lasting success in five, ten or fifteen years rather than in a 2020 or 2021 title, a thoughtful office might conclude that keeping James makes this goal more difficult to obtain. If she is uncomfortable with the prospect of relocating James (who can retire in the summer of 2021) at any time, it is information that needs to be clearly clarified before it 's. she does not allow this office.
During the great drama of Magic's departure, the Lakers quietly fired their head coach, Marco Nunez, on Wednesday. Nunez may have been ill-suited to his job or perhaps a medical genius who had a rough contract. While the Lakers are wondering if they want to change their front office or how they want to do it, here are some questions to ask internally about the dismissal of Nunez that could help illuminate this overall effort:
What was the process that inserted him into this role? How did you measure his talents and potential? What monitoring system did you use in real time to evaluate his medical practices, diagnoses, rehab protocols that he set up and his return to play programs? If you believe that the series of injuries suffered by the Lakers in recent seasons is his fault, how do you know? Is it a process or a result? Have you carefully considered all this information (assuming this information exists) when you decided to send it back, or was it a reaction to the general frustration felt by El Segundo about the player health? Was it a decision that you made because you now know a better way to do it, or was it to serve a dedicated speech to a media narrative that said that injuries and not organizational failure condemned Los Angeles Lakers in 2018-1919?
Finally, if the Lakers' misfortune is the result of hiring the wrong person, what will you do differently next time to get a different result?
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