As a franchise rich in history and culture, the Los Angeles Lakers are burdened with great expectations.
Each and every single season, the Purple and Gold are expected to compete at the highest level, and the goal is never anything short of winning a championship.
For team owner Jeanie Buss, she plays a huge role in the overall success of the team, and her decisions impact the trajectory of the entire ball club. As you can imagine, it can be a challenge to juggle those expectations year after year. Still, Buss and her organization press on like they can never stop. This summer, that meant making some tough choices in the firing of Frank Vogel and letting some key veterans walk.
In a recent chat with GQ, the extravagant owner herself doubled down on those choices and re-affirmed the ‘weight’ that comes with being a part of the organization.
“With the Lakers comes the expectation of winning, and we obviously didn’t do that last season, so some changes have been made. Always, the Lakers want to contend for championships, which means you need a certain level of talent or resources for the coach to be able to put a team in a position to win. The expectation is for this team to win. But it’s hard to win a championship. You need a lot of things to go your way. But, if you’re not part of the conversation or you’re not a team that’s getting into the playoffs, well, you really can’t win a championship can you? I look at my job as providing the resources needed to contend. And re-signing a player like LeBron James to an extension is giving us an opportunity to contend.”
“We changed coaches, so that’s a new voice. And we are continuing to, hopefully, stay injury-free. We want to see Anthony Davis stay on the floor and be healthy the whole season. And when you have Anthony and LeBron, there’s a lot of great things that can happen. But you have to have a supporting cast of players that can fill roles and also stay injury free. We have Kendrick Nunn coming back after missing last season, and a lot of young players that…I can name names, but until we see how they play there really isn’t…we have to give Darvin Ham all of the time and resources he needs to put the team together to see how they move forward.”
Clearly, Jeanie is feeling optimistic about the direction of her Lakers. With a new coach, updated roster, and good health, what can possibly go wrong this upcoming season?
While many fans and experts do not share that same outlook on the Lakers’ chances, Jeanie Buss is putting faith in her friends and players to bring the Lakers back to a state of contention. We will see soon enough if the moves made this summer brings them any closer to that goal.
