Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss is a congenial and engaging woman who presided over an NBA championship team as recently as 2020. But afterward, the team went through some dark times, and some fans scorched her with criticism as a result.
Some felt she was too obsessed with going after a third star to put around LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The 2021 trade for Russell Westbrook was clearly a disaster, and Buss got lots of criticism for that ill-fated move.
Buy Lakers TicketsShe has also been criticized for her hire and support of general manager Rob Pelinka, who had no prior front office experience when he came on board in 2017.
But both Buss and Pelinka rebounded in terms of public opinion when the Lakers made a couple of trades prior to last season’s trade deadline that turned everything around. They turned Westbrook, four little-used no-impact players and limited draft capital into Rui Hachimura, D’Angelo Russell and Jarred Vanderbilt, and all of a sudden, L.A. was a title contender again.
Buss admitted to The Athletic that prior to those life-saving trades, she was receiving death threats.
“There’s an argument to be made that he [Anthony Davis] was the best player in the NBA when he was playing.”
Do you agree?
Jeanie Buss joined the latest The Athletic NBA Show to discuss more on the Los Angeles Lakers: pic.twitter.com/LiYOsMPH5d
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) September 20, 2023
The Lakers lost their first five games and 10 of their first 12 last season, and their offense was absolutely abysmal at the time. According to analytics geeks, they had only a 0.3% chance of making the playoffs.
Not only did they make the playoffs, they reached the Western Conference Finals, and they’re now one of the favorites to win another world championship this coming season.
An 18th NBA title for the Lakers next summer would make Buss an extremely happy woman.
