29.4.12
Reks - Straight No Chaser
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28.4.12
26.4.12
Nets say farewell to New Jersey and Hello Brooklyn
The New Jersey Nets played their final game in the Garden State on Monday night, and the occasion was enough to bring out a sellout crowd.
Rapper and part-owner Jay-Z came. So did former Nets Micheal Ray Richardson, Derrick Coleman, Kenny Anderson and Kendall Gill, among others.
There were video messages from Jason Kidd, Kenyon Martin, Vince Carter, Buck Williamsand even fan favorite Brian Scalabrine. And there was a Bruce Springsteen "Born to Run" video played with Nets highlights at the end.
Kidd wanted to be here in person, but he has a championship to defend in Dallas.
"We had some great times in New Jersey," Kidd said in a text message on Monday. "No matter how many people came to the game."
Just like when relationships end, even the most tumultuous or drama-filled ones, you can't help but think about the beginning when it's over.
Kidd would have been thrilled to play before a crowd like this one on Monday night. In fact, he might've given the Nets a discount on his $103 million contract when he re-signed if the Nets had drawn the way they did on this final night of NBA basketball in New Jersey.
When he made his Nets debut on Oct. 30, 2001, only 8,749 were there to witness the beginning of what is now remembered as the Nets' golden era. And that number may have been embellished at that.
"We might have had 3,000 people," Kidd loves to recall. "I think Michael Jordan and the Wizards were playing the Knicks that night and the Yankees were in the World Series, too. We were up against a lot of stuff."
During the majority of their 35 seasons in New Jersey, the Nets seemed to be up against more stuff than any other NBA franchise. They seemed to be cursed from the moment they sold Dr. J to the Philadelphia 76ers in 1976.
Their history is well-documented. The past three-plus decades have been filled with losses -- 1,635 defeats, to be exact -- some tragic moments, too many injuries to remember, and enough drama to make the Nets the longest-running NBA reality show before there were even reality shows on TV.
The New Jersey Nets were rarely dull. They would have exciting spurts and tease fans from time to time before something bad would inevitably happen. Unfortunately, even the worst happened to the franchise.
"I thought we had something but Drazen [Petrovic] got killed in a car accident and that turned the organization back a few years, maybe even longer than that," Anderson said. "We were on the cusp. We could compete with the best, and it took us back. That was the problem with the Nets. Always settled for mediocrity."
"We joked around, me and Derrick, we used to practice at APA trucking facility," Anderson continued. "We'd share a locker next to a trucking guy. The Nets had different coaches, different players, it was like a revolving door. There wasn't no consistency with the organization. We had seven owners at the time."
But Anderson proudly pointed to how Kidd turned things around. The organization did the same. The Nets appropriately paid their respects to past stars such as Buck Williams, but they got the biggest cheers when showing videos or highlights from the Nets' two NBA Finals runs. Even Scalabrine drew a roar when his video message was played.
When they honored some of their former greats on the floor during halftime, they had Todd MacCulloch andKerry Kittles trot out the franchise's two Eastern Conference championship trophies.
Like Kidd did on Monday night, I thought about my years with the Nets, as the team's beat writer for the New York Daily News. I spent five years as the paper's backup Knicks and Nets writer before covering the Nets full-time from 2001 to 2006. When I first sat down with coach Byron Scott as the beat writer during the summer of 2001, I remember him telling me, "Maybe you will be our good luck charm."
A month later, Rod Thorn found the franchise's charm when he traded Stephon Marbury for Kidd. While some long-time beat writers labored through horrible seasons of losing basketball in New Jersey, I had the good fortune of covering a team that made the playoffs every season, starting with two consecutive NBA Finals appearances.
The Nets played some of the most exciting basketball the metropolitan area has seen, and yet few saw it on a nightly basis as the Nets played before largely empty seats.
I was there when Kidd predicted the Nets would be a .500 team or better upon his arrival, and some writers practically busted out laughing. But the Nets won, and they did it in thrilling fashion.
Kidd threw some of the sickest passes I have ever seen. Besides the almost nightly alley-oops, my two favorite Kidd passes both came against the Knicks, a team Kidd always strived to make the highlight reel against.
During one game at Continental Airlines Arena, Kidd rolled a curving bowling ball-like pass around a Knick down court to Lucious Harris for a layup. But that wasn't nearly as incredible as the no-look beauty he delivered one night at the Garden. Standing at midcourt, Kidd jumped in the air and received an outlet pass by tapping it with his back to the basket to a streaking Richard Jefferson behind him. A surprised Jefferson could only laugh as he caught the pass and dunked.
I saw some incredible dunks as well. So many of them were authored by Martin on powerful alley-oops. But the best of them all was by Carter, who threw down a nasty one-handed dunk over Alonzo Mourning in a game in Miami. Mourning actually fouled Carter as he rose up, but the guard kept elevating before dunking on Mourning.
I also had the great fortune of covering some incredible games, such as Game 5 of the 2002 Eastern Conference quarterfinals between the Nets and Indiana Pacers. The Nets needed double overtime to survive Reggie Miller and his 3-point daggers in the deciding game.
I saw Kidd single-handedly take over and will the Nets to wins over the Boston Celtics and Detroit Pistons in the playoffs, only to fall short in the NBA Finals to Shaq, Kobe and the Los Angeles Lakers and Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs.
While I saw explosive plays on the court, I also had to cover explosions off it, like any former or current Nets beat writer has become accustomed to. It didn't matter if the Nets made the Finals, there was always some sort of ticking time bomb waiting to go off, whether it was Keith Van Horn being criticized by teammates and traded or Byron Scott getting fired.
During the 2003-04 season, after the Nets had been to two straight Finals, the Nets went through the motions of a 110-63 loss in Memphis in December. The team didn't open their locker room immediately following the debacle. One of my mentors, Frank Isola of the New York Daily News, always told me to beware of ugly 20- to 30-point losses and how blowouts like that often can be the result of a toxic situation in the locker room.
Following this lifeless loss, the door to the Nets' locker room was slightly ajar because there were all these electrical wires running through it from the hallway. Outside the door and the thick wall, reporters could detect, faintly, a voice screaming. It was hard to tell who was doing the screaming, but most of the writers assumed a frustrated Scott was chewing out his team.
The next day, a source called and asked me, "What makes you think Byron was the one doing the screaming?" Instead, it was Kidd and Martin who yelled at Scott and the coaching staff. Scott was fired a little more than a month later.
I learned that you can't always get away from the Nets during a day off either. During a day I was scheduled to be off, Martin and teammate Alonzo Mourning nearly got into a brawl in practice. Mourning was making a comeback while fighting kidney disease, and was one of the last ones to finish a suicide drill, when Martin and Jefferson were heard laughing. The ultra-serious Mourning didn't appreciate the laughter, snapping back, "This ain't funny."
Jefferson replied, "You're right. It's hilarious." When Martin and Mourning began to exchange words, with Mourning questioning Martin's ability to be a leader while in the training room nursing an ankle injury, Martin shot back with, "Oh, my kidney, my kidney."
I may not have been around for Micheal Ray Richardson, Super John Williamson, Drazen, DC and the "Whoop-de-damn-do!" years. But I did get my first taste of some of the Nets' trademark zaniness as the backup Nets writer in 1997.
I vividly remember my first time in the Nets' locker room. I introduced myself to Jayson Williams and he asked me what my ethnicity was. When I told him I was Thai, Williams loudly barked, "I hate Thai food!"
The Nets always had a cast of characters and misfits. Some of them happily returned on Monday night and received a warm farewell standing ovation from the 18,711 in attendance.
Kidd drew the biggest cheers of the night with his halftime video message to the New Jersey fans he would have loved to address in person.
"Being a Net was a great time of my career and a great honor," Kidd said in the video. "So I hope you guys enjoy tonight and hopefully I'll see you guys soon. Take care."
24.4.12
Nasir
Get More: Nas, Behind The Music, Behind The Music, Behind The Music Nas, Nas Videos, Nas
Get More: Nas, Behind The Music, Behind The Music, Behind The Music Nas, Nas Videos, Nas
Get More: Nas, Behind The Music, Behind The Music, Behind The Music Nas, Nas Videos, Nas
23.4.12
20.4.12
Where Is Boobie Miles Now?
Boobie Miles lives in a house on Cedar Street in Kermit, Texas, with his girlfriend La Donna. It is modest, two bedrooms and a relatively small kitchen, but there is also a separate dwelling in the back with a bedroom and a full bath. It all needs work. But it's a house, giving Boobie a security he has rarely known since high school.
I open the side door, and there in a lounge chair sleeps Boobie, dressed in a red tracksuit. I call his name. There is no answer. I worry that something is wrong. He now weighs 315 pounds, and he recently discovered that he has diabetes. Neurotic Jew that I am, I wonder if he's dead. But then I realize that the sound I'm hearing, like the closing whistle at a steel factory, is Boobie snoring. I yell his name, but there is no response. I yell it louder. Finally I tap him hard on the shoulder. He wakes and looks at me.
"Hey!" he says, then gets up and gives me a bear hug that almost smothers me. I can feel his big hands and arms wrapping around me. He is soon to be 42. His face is still strong and youthful, just like it was in high school. The rest of him has not fared as well. If we ran the hundred-yard dash now, I might be able to beat him.
"So how you doing?" I ask.
"Man, I'm hanging in there."
"You're always hanging in there."
"Yup."
We settle down to catch up. I ask him about the new rap song by Big K.R.I.T. called "Boobie Miles."
"Big K.R.I.T. never asked permission to use your name, did he?"
"I don't even know that dude."
"You should sue the motherfucker. Everybody knows it's based on you."
Boobie is reluctant to accuse, the essential core of his decency.
"I wouldn't want to sue him, because he's doing something that I have a love of doing. I'm not a hater of anything like that."
He would like to meet Big K.R.I.T., just talk to him. But the phone hasn't rung. And Boobie makes his 12 dollars an hour, with no benefits until he has worked there long enough to get the benefits, and meanwhile he has to deal with the county probation officer who sometimes comes around unannounced and scares the shit out of him because he thinks his boss will freak out and fire him. He has to pay probation — $275 a month — as restitution for the aggravated assault he was convicted of in 2010. Plus there are support payments of $600 a month for the twins he had in 2000 with his now-estranged wife, Shayla, as well as another child born out of wedlock. (He also has two other kids.) The payments leave him with a take-home each month of about a thousand dollars, perhaps a little more depending on his hours.
Boobie says he is over what happened at Permian. But it isn't true. The experience still roils inside him, the distance of age giving him a fresher perspective and increased bitterness. "That dude didn't like me," he says of Permian's head coach at the time, Gary Gaines.
He is right; in hindsight, I wonder if I was too easily seduced by Gaines's golly-gee-willikers personality to see how he really viewed Boobie. Gaines did not swear, and he was not a yeller, but he didn't have to be one in order to manipulate his players. It rankles Boobie to this day that the 2004 film of Friday Night Lights showed him having dinner with Gaines and his wife, among others. The scene implied a close relationship, which there never was. Gaines only put up with Boobie because he saw the running back as his pathway to success, and Gaines was an ambitious coach. He believed he needed to tamp down Boobie's ego, keep him in his place.
When Boobie was a sophomore, he started missing offseason football practice because it conflicted with track, where he had already established himself as a varsity sprinter. He says the track coach told him to stop going to offseason football workouts because the biggest event of the spring, the Texas Relays, was coming up. Boobie says Gaines confronted him and asked why he was missing practice. After Boobie explained, Gaines told him he might as well go "major in track." Upset and confused, Boobie cleaned out his football locker.
Boobie says that Gaines then talked to the track coach, who confirmed Boobie's explanation for why he was missing football workouts. But Gaines nevertheless acted as if Boobie had disgraced the Permian uniform and made him apologize to the entire team, an exercise in humiliation for a 16-year-old kid.
When Boobie got hurt in Lubbock during that preseason scrimmage of 1988 and another black player with excellent skills came out of nowhere to replace him, the Permian coaches no longer had to pretend to deal with Boobie any longer. They were relieved he wasn't playing, and one white coach referred to Boobie as a "big ol' dumb n-----."
I never named the coach in the book because I liked him. This was also the price of access. I realize now that this was a mistake, because of the devastating impact his comment has had on Boobie. His name was Mike Belew. He coached the running backs, and he was otherwise affable and self-deprecating. He later married an African American woman, hardly the actions of a racist. It may have been ignorance speaking, but it doesn't matter. Belew's anonymous words, which Boobie came across in the book, scarred him forever.
As we drive to Monahans and sift through the cold ashes of Boobie's Permian experience, he asks me who called him "a big ol' dumb n-----." I tell him. I think he has known for a long time anyway. "I could not believe he would say that shit about me," Boobie says. "That hurt for real when he said that. I could not get that shit out of my mind. He actually called me that, bro."
When I put Belew's words in the book, the intent was to show the virulence of the racism expressed against Boobie once he got hurt. But several years later, we were talking about the book when Boobie railed against what the then-unnamed coach had said about him: "Do you have any fucking idea of how it feels to see this stuff said about you and know it's goin' to be there forever?"
He was right. In my mind, I had been protecting Boobie by using the anonymous quote. But the only person I was protecting was the coach who said it. If I exposed Boobie to the sentiments of that coach, I should have exposed Belew at the same time. So 22 years later, I am correcting the mistake. Maybe too much time has passed and maybe the decision is wrong. But I owe it to Boobie to set the record straight.
H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the best-selling books Friday Night Lights, A Prayer for the City, and Three Nights in August.
19.4.12
Gerald Green's improbable return to the NBA
Refound Youth
Gerald Green, the reclamation project of the New Jersey Nets, showcases a vertical of about four feet. He once dunked over a line of teammates at a high school contest. The dunk forced the remaining participants to quit, some out of reverence and others to stave off embarrassment. A couple years later, Green simultaneously dunked and blew out the candle from a cupcake sitting above the rim at the NBA's dunk contest.
Kobe Bryant once pegged Green as "a hell of a talent," and said that the young star reminded him a lot of himself when he first came into the league. Many favored Green to Tracy McGrady, another sinewy, slender forward who also rocketed up draft charts after a summer spent dominating fellow high school competition. McGrady had established himself as an All-Star by the time Green declared for the NBA out of Houston's Gulf Shores Academy in 2005. "Tracy's ability was innate and I think Gerald's ability was innate," said Sonny Vaccaro, the godfather of shoe marketing. "I think he was blessed with a gift."
Green is now 26 years old. He spent the last three years in basketball purgatory. The Rockets — his hometown Rockets — offered Green only four minutes of playing time before waiving him in one of his last NBA opportunities in 2008.
Green is a final remnant of the NBA's prep-to-pro golden era that spanned from 1995 to 2005. The NBA baptized 39 players into the professional ranks from high school in those 11 years. Some — like Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James — blossomed into bona fide superstars. More often, the prep players landed well short of the premature applause and adulation in their professional careers. Only seven of the 39 have made an All-Star team.1 Some carved out decent, sustainable NBA careers. Others, like Robert Swift, Korleone Young, and Ndudi Ebi faded into basketball oblivion. Lenny Cooke, a New York City phenom, went completely undrafted.
None of the prep-to-pros have taken Green's long, winding road to NBA relevance. This is a player Celtics coach Doc Rivers said would have been an All-Star if he had listened to him a few years ago. Green played in Russia — "Siberia was a pain in my ass," he said. He played in China. He played in the Development League. Then came the 10-day contract with the Nets in late February.
His story is littered with the typical warning signs that plague a basketball prodigy who was awarded way too much way too soon. He is now straying away from that usual narrative into the sustainable career he once dreamed about. The Nets will fail to make the playoffs for a fifth straight season. The organization is already steered to the summer, to moving to Brooklyn, to its attempt at retaining Deron Williams. These last few games are also the most important of Green's life because they will help determine where he goes next year.
"I never would think that I would be back here in the NBA," Green said. "I just would have never thought. I knew I was never going to stop trying. I just thought I blew my chance. A lot of times you get a good opportunity and it never comes again. And I got a second chance."
Green looked down at his socks. They bore the silhouette of Jerry West, the NBA's logo.
"I can't even tell you, man, how good it is just to be wearing these socks right now," he said.
Green wanted to end the taunts as a freshman in high school. Brent Jackson, another kid around his size, had already started dunking, and others wondered why Green couldn't jump as high. Green lost much of his right ring finger in a freak accident trying to dunk on a child's rim, and that injury impairs him from palming the ball. He spent the summer between his freshman and sophomore years in high school working on his jumping ability. He knew he could jump higher, but he had not tried dunking on a rim until the open gym runs at Dobie High that fall.
"I tried to dunk with two hands and I got so high that I missed it because I didn't know I was going to get that high," Green said.
The lost finger made him a target for insults. Green followed a simple philosophy: He did not start fights and he did not back away from them. Kevin Cross, an assistant coach at Dobie at the time, remembered lecturing Green about playing tag in the cafeteria. The principal's office may as well have been another class on Green's schedule.
"He was pretty immature," Cross recalled. "With Gerald's case, more of it is not turning in assignments. A lot of it is laziness."
Green did not play his freshman year because of his grades, Cross said. He played junior varsity his sophomore season and then played on varsity, but missed several games because of his school marks, as a junior.
That summer, Green transferred to Gulf Shores Academy, a charter school for troubled children that showcased a burgeoning basketball program. The school was in a strip mall and coached by Ken "Juice" Williams. Williams played collegiately at the University of Houston and bragged that his team would take on all comers, including the Rockets. The team played outside of Texas 11 times Green's senior year.
"When I first started at Gulf Shores, I was just trying to keep kids off the street," Williams said. "I didn't know it was going to build up to what it became. I was just asking these guys, if I start a team, 'Will y'all stop smoking dope and shooting folks?' I was getting the worst of the worst kids. I was getting kids straight from the jailhouse. When Gerald came over there, he was like a god. There was nothing Gerald could do that was wrong. He was at a school with a bunch of knuckleheads."
"We helped a lot of kids get into college," Williams continued. "Kids that would have never had a chance to go."
The school reclassified Green as a junior because he had sat out his freshman year. Gulf Shores's starting five Green's senior year consisted of all fifth-year players.
"His grade point average was really low," Cross said. "He had a 1.5, 1.6 at Dobie, at a public school. He goes to Gulf Shores, which is in a shopping center and all of a sudden he's an A, B student."
"A lot of people say it was my grades," Green countered. "I never failed a class. Never. A lot of people say, 'Aw, he was a dummy.' The only reason I reclassified was because I didn't play my freshman year, so I still had eligibility."
The school's principal, Linda Johnson, was convicted three years ago of issuing false high school transcripts for money, and officials accused school administrators of swindling $8 million by over-reporting attendance. The Texas Education Agency did not renew Gulf Shores's charter in July of 2009.
"It hurts me," Williams said. "I quit coaching. I ain't even want to coach again."
Williams, by then, had already delivered on his promise to Green of making him into a pro. Green scored a game-high 24 points in the McDonald's All-American Game and won the slam dunk contest. Oklahoma State originally received Green's commitment. He opted for the NBA. "At the time, I thought I was going to be a lottery pick," Green said. "You can't pass that up. Lottery?"
Some, like Cross, are not sure Green would have been academically eligible to play in college. "I wish he would have stayed at Dobie, but that's neither here nor there," Gerald Green Sr. said in a recent phone interview, adding: "That's an ugly story. That's a real ugly story and I really don't want to get into that. It was a basketball decision. I'll say it like that. It wasn't education or anything like that. It was a basketball decision. We wanted to see him play."
They did. But Green felt the loss of his high school as a young professional.
"I didn't have people pulling for me in Houston because everything that had helped me get to that point had closed down," Green said. "I had no school. I couldn't go to my teachers who had gave me advice. I couldn't go to them because I didn't know where they worked at. It was a big school. Picture your school being closed down. No gym. No high school. For me, because I came out of high school, that's like me going to college."
The Celtics rejoiced when Green tumbled to them at the 18th selection in the 2005 draft. Green stewed. He thought he would be a lottery pick, and his advisors told him not to work out against other prospects. He had expected to go to Portland with the third overall pick. But Portland traded the selection to Utah for three draft picks and the Jazz chose Deron Williams.
Green entered a delicate situation in Boston. In Green's rookie season, the Celtics missed the playoffs for the first time in four years and lost 12 more games than they did a year earlier. Rivers, who, at least according to the media, was on the hot seat, was reluctant to give Green much playing time.
Green played more in his second season and won the dunk contest. The outcome boosted his confidence even if his overall game had yet to develop. "I wasn't a student of the game," Green said. "I just felt like I could go out and play. These guys at this level are too good for that. They're too smart, too fast."
Still, the Celtics traded Green after two seasons with a package that included Al Jefferson and Sebastian Telfair — two other prep-to-pro players — for Kevin Garnett.
Green conceded that the trade form Boston shook his confidence. "But at the time, we wasn't winning," he said. "Paul [Pierce] and a lot of players — not to a point a finger — but a lot of players were just going through the motions, just trying to get through this game and get to the next game. When you're winning, you worry about every day, every day just trying to get better. When you're losing, it's 'OK, Let's just hurry up and get through this and get out of here.' When you're winning, it's a whole different atmosphere. I didn't understand a winning atmosphere until I got to Dallas. When I got to Dallas, that's when I understood, 'Wow. We've got to really take things seriously. These people don't play.' Because it's going to build up until you get to around this time and playoffs hit and you've got to be right. You've got to be ready. You can't be asking the same questions in April that you asked in November."
In Minnesota, Green found himself competing against a glut of young small forwards. He asked for a trade. "He won the slam dunk contest," said Randy Wittman, Minnesota's coach at the time. "He was an athlete. It was a tough transition for him, coming out of high school. He thought it was probably going to be an easy transition walking in here because of his athletic ability."
The description is a sharp contrast from the dedicated player Rick Nelson coached when Green played AAU and attended practices with him in the morning and evening. "I couldn't believe it," Nelson said. "When I heard that, I'd ask Gerald, 'Why are they saying that? It's not you.' And all of a sudden you get a label, if you already think they're soft and they're an 18-, 19-year-old kid going to a party and hanging out like all the rest of them do. It wasn't done right. From the day it started on draft night and all his agents. It was BS."
Green became a poster boy of the prodigy gone wrong, a cautionary example to younger players. The Rockets and Mavericks brought him in for stints before quickly parting ways. The perception, grounded in a lot of truth, became a hard-to-shake label.
"You look at Gerald Green, that kind of kid, and you go, `Wow, these kids are so talented. He can shoot. He can dunk. He can jump,'" Phil Jackson once said. "But the problem is they don't know how to play and they don't know how to fit a role. They don't know what the job requires for them to be part of a team."
Green did not have a job in the fall of 2009. He contemplated going to college and starting a career outside of basketball. He instead signed with Russia's PBC Lokomotiv-Kuban.
The team played in small, cold gyms. They practiced twice a day. Green underwent a severe culture shock. "I've never been to a whole country and not seen one black person," Green said. "Just never seen it. And then when you're black, they look at you crazy because they've never seen it either. You're just as shocked as they are. A lot of times, people come touch you like, 'What is this?' They'll touch you and look at your skin to see if it's paint. I'm not playing. All Russia is not like that. You've got your big cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg. Some cities understand that there are black people. They do exist. But the smaller cities, the little villages, they've never seen it."
That is the setting where Green started learning the game instead of just playing it.
"I've always loved this game," Green said. "I lost a little bit of it my year in Minnesota and my year in Dallas not playing, but man, I went overseas and people really think that I lost my love for the game, but actually, I found it. I was playing and then I missed the game of the NBA so much because I wasn't in the NBA. I knew then, in my first year overseas, I said, 'I have to get back.' I don't know if I'll ever get that chance, but I told myself if I ever get that chance, I'm not going to take things for granted. I'm going to go hard every day because every day is not promised."
He returned for another season in Russia with BC Krasnye Krylya. He played in China before quickly being released following his team's bad start. "In China, what was so messed up is you play 35, 36 games," he said. "We had only played four games and you're already making decisions? We've still got another 34 games left. We can go 32-3 right now. You never know, and I was averaging like 27."
Green perused his options before this season. He settled on the Development League after talking to Los Angeles D-Fenders coach Eric Musselman. The Development League consisted of small cities, small crowds, and small paychecks with improvement being the motivation.
"He wasn't worried about trying to get called up," said Musselman, a former coach of the Sacramento Kings. "He was worried about trying to become a better player." Musselman counseled Green to absorb everything and told him that, if he did, he wouldn't be with him for long.
"Everything he said became true," Green said.
Nets general manager Billy King phoned Kenton Edelin, Green's agent, shortly before the All-Star break. King offered a 10-day contract for Andre Emmett, a former point guard at Texas Tech. The problem? Edelin did not represent Emmett. King had the agents mixed up.
"I said, 'Hang in there. We may call you back,'" King said.
Green showed up on the Nets' radar when small forwards Damion James and Keith Bogans sustained season-ending injuries. King would, in fact, call later, and offered what basically amounted to a tryout for a tryout. Green would match up in a one-on-one workout against swingman Alan Anderson. Avery Johnson would supervise the workout, and his selection would receive a 10-day contract to the Nets.
Green arrived in Houston for the tryout the day after playing in the Development League's All-Star game and winning the MVP. He left the gym disheartened. His shot did not fall. He could have done better and thought the opportunity, his second chance, had slipped by. Edelin called him later and Green relayed his dismay. Green received another phone call from Edelin a few minutes later and informed him that he had the 10-day contract.
At Green's first practice with the Nets, Johnson told his new swingman to be aggressive and, if he had a shot, to take it. If not, Johnson warned, Green would not be with the team for long.
The Nets offered Green a second 10-day contract and guaranteed him for the season on March 18. He guarded Steve Blake, Kobe Bryant, and Metta World Peace in a game against the Lakers. "He's a much better defender than he was when Doc had him," Johnson said. Green has scored 20 points or more in seven games and dropped 32 points in an overtime game against Cleveland. He did this against the Rockets.
The play is familiar to those that know him even if it came as largely a surprise to the NBA.
"He still jumps out the gym," Nelson said. "He still shoots the hell out of the basketball. So what is he doing now that he didn't do before? His confidence is up. He's got confidence now. You've got to understand, when you go to the D-league and when you go overseas, at that stage of the game, you have nothing else to lose besides being sent home."
The Celtics locker room lists the names of each player who has previously worn an active player's number in a nod to tradition. Garnett wears Green's old number. Green's name is curiously crossed out. Some suspect it is because of Green's initial surprise that the Celtics awarded Garnett his old number. Now, Green says it is an honor for Garnett to wear it and that he would have made the trade too.
"It's the first thing [Green] told me: 'If I had just listened to all the things you were telling me and putting it into play, I would probably still be here,'" Rivers said recently before the Nets hosted the Celtics. "I told him, 'No, we would have traded you. We needed to get Kevin and those guys.'"
The Nets lost, despite a team-high 15 points from Green. He and Garnett met in the innards of the Prudential Center after the game. They are connected through the trade, the one that restored Boston's championship luster and also tipped off Green's long journey. They are also linked at both ends of the NBA's prep-to-pro generation: Garnett as the one prepared for the NBA, and Green, the cautionary tale until now.
Garnett told Green to keep working and that he was happy to see him in the NBA again.
"It's good to see Gerald happy again and smiling," Gerald Green Sr. said. "It's been kind of tough seeing him down and everything, but now he's starting to be himself again. That means more than anything else."
"I feel like he graduated from the school of hard knocks," Green Sr. said. "The University of Hard Knocks, or hopefully will be graduating. He learned a lot from being in Russia for two years and China and all. I don't see how you can get any better education than that."
Green will again be without a team this summer. But it should not take long before he lands another job and his NBA future is finally secure. "Everybody wants to be a superstar," Green said. "I understand that probably won't be me. I just want to be a productive player in this league. When I retire, I want people to look at me and say, 'Gerald Green, he was a winner. He brung it every night. He didn't give up. And that's what I want to be about. I want people to remember me not just as a dunker."
18.4.12
Q&A with Jim Buss
It was team photo day at the Los Angeles Lakers' practice facility this week. Sitting smack dab in the middle of the front row of smiling participants was Jim Buss, wearing a black baseball-style Lakers cap with a line of players wearing yellow jerseys to either side of him.
Buss, the Lakers’ executive vice president of player personnel, was occupying the spot his father, Lakers owner Jerry Buss, usually takes when it’s time for the team to annually say, “Cheese.” It was a fitting scene, illustrating just how much the younger Buss has been thrust into the forefront of the Lakers’ franchise decisions as his father has watched him assume greater control over the family business.
Jerry Buss is still “the boss,” as Jim Buss says, and his absence from the team photo wasn’t an orchestrated move to pass the baton to his son or anything -- he was simply feeling under the weather the day of the photo shoot, according to a Lakers staffer -- but there will come a time when the Lakers are truly Jim Buss’ team.
Q: What are your thoughts on this season?
“Well, I think it’s coming along just as we anticipated with the changing of the guard of coaches [and] new players. I felt that the second half of the season would be better than the first half. As far as up and down, every season has its ups and downs. To me, this is a normal up and down, so it’s OK. But I like how we’re hitting our stride going into the playoffs, so I’m happy.”
Q: Start with Andrew Bynum. He could be the best player on this team in the second half of the season, all due respect to Kobe.
“I’m not a guy that judges players in different positions against different players. It doesn’t make sense to me to compare a center to a guard. It doesn’t make sense at all. So, to say Andrew Bynum was the best player in the second half, I wouldn’t be comparing him to anybody. You got Pau Gasol, Metta World Peace, Ramon Sessions, Kobe [Bryant]. ... I think they all are the best player on the team in their position.”
Q: You would agree, though, that his performance on the court in terms of production has been the best it’s ever been.
“Yes, of course. If you wanted me to compare him to himself, he’s having his best year.”
Q: Has his attitude or any of his actions on and off the court taken away from some of that production?
“I don’t think so. I like what Phil Jackson said the other day [to the Los Angeles Times]. I thought that was the best way to look at it. The kid is coming into his own and there’s going to be some growing pains and just let him grow. So, I’m good with it.”
Q: Going back to 2005, how involved were you in making sure the Lakers picked Bynum?
“How involved? Extremely involved. It was not that I was pressuring to change peoples’ minds, it was there were other options that we could have done, and I was the one -- basically Mitch [Kupchak] and I got on board together on this, and then we convinced everybody that Bynum is the guy. Where the convincing part came was not picking him. The convincing part was to basically tell him to stop his workouts. That’s where you basically are guaranteeing that you’re taking him.
“The actual picking process was not, ‘Oh, should we take him or not?’ It was, ‘Do we shut down his workouts or not?’ And that’s where I came in. The final call was basically Mitch and I were talking it out, and we said, ‘Let’s stop the workouts.’”
Q: If you go back to that draft, the lottery centers that were picked were Andrew Bogut No. 1 and then Channing Frye at No. 8, Fran Vazquez was at No. 11 and Bynum at No. 10. At the time, Bynum might have been considered the biggest question mark out of that group. I think today you’d say he’s the strongest one.
“Oh yeah. I think I’d take him over the rest.”
Q: Do you look back at that as a franchise-changing moment?
“I personally don’t. In [Bynum's] second year, my dad said, ‘You know what? This might be a franchise changer.’ Because you could see his potential in probably his second year. Unfortunately he’s been injured, to show what he really has. But, as far as me looking back on a franchise changer, I don’t look at it that way. Obviously he’s going to be our center for a long time, but I just don’t look at things like that. Because, we’re always winning and we always want to stay on top. I don’t know how you change a franchise from winning to winning.”
Q: You stated that you intend for Bynum to be your franchise center for the future, so his injury history and any attitude issues [aren't] really holding you back?
“No.”
Q: Let’s go on to Kobe. I know he’s compensated very well by your franchise. He’s the highest-paid player in the league. Can you put a numerical value on what he actually means to this team?
“I think that’s impossible. I really do. I couldn’t put a figure on it, for sure. Obviously it goes so far reaching, you know? Just the image. Even Magic Johnson still is participating in the franchise’s wealth. It makes the team that much more valuable. Because Magic Johnson, we don’t pay him. So, to say what Kobe is worth would probably be impossible because he’s a Laker for life and who knows what he’s going to contribute later on, which could be an incredible amount.”
Q: Part of your job requires you to be in the moment of the season but also plan for the future. Have you guys even begun to think about life post Kobe as a player?
“I don’t like to, but we have to. So, yeah, it goes through our minds but we don’t really [dwell on it]. We can’t anticipate what is going to happen. We can’t talk to him like I said, so I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know if he’s thinking he wants to play a year more or two years more [after his current contract expires] or retire. I don’t know. I have zero idea.”
Q: In an interview with 710 ESPN’s “Mason & Ireland Show,” you did say that you thought he would play longer than two more years ...
“That’s me thinking him. I can’t read his mind. What I said is I think he’s playing well enough to not hang them up. I think a caller asked me if Kobe is going to hang them up and I said I just don’t see that. I mean, he could have been the minutes leader this year. I don’t see him slowing down.”
Q: But an extension with Kobe has not been addressed yet?
“It can’t be.”
Q: Magic Johnson came out this year and said that you and Kobe should sit down and have a talk. Did that happen?
“Yes, we had dinner. We talk all the time now. What it is is, be it my fault, I should communicate more with the players in a certain way. I’ve always felt that when it comes to decisions that it changes every 10 minutes when it’s actually going to happen. To inform a player or ask a player’s opinion about this guy or that guy, it would bore them to death and drive them crazy. So, I was under the impression that it was better to wait until the very last moment and then talk to him. But, Kobe is cool about it. He said, ‘Just let me know.’ Keep me in the loop, kind of thing. And I said, ‘OK, I have no problem with that.’”
“Q: Do you feel like this season you’ve learned a lesson about communication, because you also told the L.A. Times if you could do the coaching search again you would reach out to Kobe more?Yes, we [Bryant and Buss] had dinner. We talk all the time now. What it is is, be it my fault; I should communicate more with the players in a certain way. I've always felt that when it comes to decisions that it changes every 10 minutes when it's actually going to happen.
” -- Lakers VP Jim Buss
“I think so. It’s a fine line. I definitely should have called him, and I’m not going to back down from that. I should have. But, you know, hey, I make mistakes.”
Q: You’ve said before that Kobe is part of the Lakers’ family, and you mentioned how Magic continues to represent the team. Have you thought about where Kobe could be in relationship to the franchise when he’s done playing?
“I know he’s going to be the face of the Lakers for a long, long, long, long time. Like Magic, obviously, 25 years later.”
Q: Could you see him having some kind of equity in the team or anything like that?
“I don’t know. Those are things where I have no idea what he’s thinking. I don’t know.”
Q: Let’s jump into the new collective bargaining agreement, because I think it’s important.
“Yes, it’s my favorite [laughing].”
Q: It changes everything, I think, for you guys.
“Absolutely. We can make a lot of money and still lose money? [Laughing.] That’s not a good thing. Especially when it’s a family-run business. I mean, my God, we don’t have Carnival Cruises behind us or Kohl’s Department Stores ... and Microsoft up in good, old Portland. This is it. If we lose money, we lose money.”
Q: Under the old paradigm, obviously you made prudent front-office decisions for the last 30 years since your father took over the franchise. You’ve had great Hall of Fame players. Obviously that went into it. Sometimes you drafted them, sometimes you traded for them, sometimes you signed them. You did all that right. But also, you spent a lot of money. And the new CBA is going to prevent you, or make it very punitive toward you, to do that. So what is the new approach to staying as an elite franchise?
“Well, let’s see. Let me think about that for a second. The timeline with the new CBA, the first two years are basically dollar for dollar, which is still costly, but we’re used to that. The revenue sharing is what hurts us. The revenue sharing [from $4 million-6 million in the past to $50 million-80 million a year in the future] kicks in next year, and that’s not part of the new CBA, but you have to take that into consideration.
“People were throwing it back in our face with the new television deal, and it’s basically kind of wiped that out. Fifty million dollars extra per year just kind of went out the door.
“To keep the franchise going in the right direction, we just have to make prudent decisions on everything. As far as extending players or keeping this player or taking a chance on this player, and we have to get a little bit more aggressive in the draft even though we had to get rid of our first-round picks this year. So, I think those two are the main streams. Just more prudent decisions and more aggressive in the draft.”
Q: You have a family business, and businesses across the country have suffered in the last five years because of the downturn in the economy. Have the Busses been immune to that, or have you guys felt that as well?
“Of course we felt that, and that’s another consideration that we have to take into [account] when we make the decisions that we do. There’s a downturn in the economy. But, that’s part of the [lockout]. We’ve gone through that. It seems like we’ve come out of the [lockout] spending more with the revenue sharing. It looks like they hit us and everybody else made the adjustments. I think the CBA adjusted for that, and yeah, we’ve definitely felt that because it changes your decisions.”
Q: How much does the new CBA restrict you competitively as a luxury tax-paying team?
“If you’re over the tax, you can’t make trades at certain levels. You can only get the mini-midlevel [exception] so you can’t improve your team [as easily]. There are a lot of restrictions, and that’s what they were trying to do, just restrict us from doing what we do.”
Q: I know you said that David Stern is still someone you hold esteem for, but did you ever feel like the Lakers were being targeted?
“David Stern I thought did a fantastic job. I thought he tried to keep it calm and fair. I think most of the other teams were pointing at the Lakers. They were saying that the Lakers do this, it’s not fair. The Lakers do that, it’s not fair. But, in the end, I think David Stern kept it all calm and did the best he could.”
Q: There are clear challenges. So, are you confident with this new landscape that the Lakers can still be “the Lakers”?
“I am very confident. I think we set ourselves up to be competitive past the new CBA, and we were waiting for the new landscape, and with this new landscape, like I said earlier, we just have to make the right decisions all the time to be competitive, and I think we’re capable of doing that.”
Q: Getting back to the family business, obviously the Lakers is what you guys do, but do you have outside interests or businesses that are also part of your portfolio?
“No. This is it. It is a little time consuming [laughing]. So, I don’t know if we’d really want anything else.”
Q: One more question on the finance front -- do you have any regrets about how the team handled its business during the lockout?
“You mean letting people go? Well, my God, we didn’t think there was going to be a season. I felt we were fair in our decisions. Where contracts were up, we didn’t renew them. We just didn’t know. I was confident going into September, October, but then we lost all confidence and we thought the season was pretty much over. When I went to the league meetings, the atmosphere was more like we’re not going to have a season. So, we had to do what we had to do. It’s not fun; there’s no question about that. But, I think all in all we did pretty good as far as keeping the people we needed and rehiring people that we wanted to.”
Q: Let’s talk about you. Do you feel like you’re at a point in your career with the Lakers that you’re beginning to, for lack of a better term, spread your wings a little bit and kind of come into your own with responsibilities and kind of your voice?
“Am I prepared, is that what you’re asking?”
Q: No, not if you’re prepared. Is this your moment? Do you feel like you have more responsibility, more say?
“It’s like watching your kid grow up. Somebody that you haven’t seen in a year comes in and all of the sudden says, ‘Holy crimminy! Look how tall they’ve gotten!’ I do this every day, so I don’t think it’s one day I walked out and started doing this [Buss flaps his arms] kind of thing. I think it’s so gradual that I really haven’t seen the growth that I have. Now, if I look back five years, yes, there’s a lot of responsibility and a lot more say and a lot more decision making, but it wasn’t overnight. It’s been a long process. It’s a fun process, but it’s been a long process and a lot of teachers. Hall of Famers kind of thing. So, this year I think it’s coming to fruition because my dad has mentioned that I’m responsible now for the decisions. But really, I haven’t felt it. It seems like I do this all the time.”
Q: You mention your dad. What’s Dr. Buss’ role with the franchise?
“The boss. Same as it’s ever been. Wait, there’s a song like that ...”
Q: Same as it ever was ...
“Same as it ever was, yeah, that’s it. Same as it ever was. If there’s a decision to be made that’s important to the franchise -- a player movement -- he’s the final hammer. I’ll have a recommendation, Mitch might have a different recommendation and we’ll just let him decide. Usually Mitch and I are on board together. We’ll hack it out first and then we’ll go with a recommendation kind of thing, ‘This is what we feel we should do.’ And there have been times he’s stopped them. There are times where he says, ‘No, I don’t want that.’ So, I mean, it’s his decision. He’s the final guy.”
Q: It seems like yours and Mitch’s relationship is pretty strong. Would you say most of the time all three of you guys are in harmony? Is there healthy disagreements?
“Oh, it’s healthy. We couldn’t survive if we were yes men to each other or to my dad. The three of us will have an opinion, we’ll argue our opinion and then eventually, it gets hashed out to where we’re all on board or one guy isn’t (and) two are and it doesn’t really matter which two or which one. Except for my dad. If it’s two against him, then we’ll probably lose that battle.”
Q: But, someday the buck will stop with you. That’s where it’s headed. You mentioned how gradual it is, but do you feel any pressure to that. That you’ll be responsible for that mantle at some point?
“No.”
Q: Do you look forward to it? Are you excited about it?
“No, because then that means my dad is not involved. So, no, I don’t look forward to it. Am I worried about it? No. Not at all.”
Q: Have you ever consulted with or reached out to other people like George Steinbrenner’s sons or anyone else in a similar position in terms of just talking about the experience?
“No. The reason is because it’s basically a family-owned business and this is all we do. So, I don’t know if they’re in the same position I am. They have other businesses. They’re CEOs of other businesses. I’m not. I think my main focus, obviously my whole focus, is on the Lakers and theirs might not be (solely on their teams). I don’t reach out like I’m in a position where you can relate to me, no.”
Q: Do you feel like the Mike Brown hiring was a signature moment in terms of this year in showing how much you’ve grown in terms of your position?
“The Mike Brown decision was not my decision only. It was a collective unit and that was Mitch, my father and I. We went through the interview process, which, I’m sure you’re aware of who they were. It wasn’t my decision. People label that, I’m not sure why. I guess because they just want to. I’m not sure where that came from. It was a collective agreement that he was very impressive. We love his attention to detail. We felt that he was a fit for these kind of players and I have no regrets whatsoever.”
Q: It just seemed like it went fairly quickly. Was the fact that Golden State was also interested in Mike may have been the reason why you decided to make a move so quickly on him?
“I don’t know if it was like, ‘We have to do it today,’ kind of thing. It was just we went through and when we got to Mike he was so impressive that we felt we should shut down the process and hire him. If he wasn’t impressive, I think we would have continued on. I guess it felt like we did it fast, but at the same time it could have taken a lot longer, but the process was cut short by his impressiveness.”
Q: How would you describe your management style or your approach to your job?
“I lean on a lot of people, as far as Mitch’s knowledge. I rely on a lot of peoples’ opinions from top to bottom. I’ve always done that. My entire career and everything I’ve done is rely on people who are experts. I’ve had no problem taking opinions from Mitch, Kobe, Magic, it doesn’t matter ... Phil Jackson. Then I process it. If I have a gut feeling, sometimes I’ll go with the gut feeling, but most often it’s basically through a long process of thinking and getting opinions.”
Q: You told Lakers.com, “I’m a numbers guy.” Can you get into that with me?
“I’m not sharing my numbers with you (laughing). Jeez. Wow.”
Q: Well, you don’t have to be that specific (laughing). But, I’d like to know more about your advanced metrics. Obviously Daryl Morey gets a ton of credit, that being his reputation. What are you seeing that maybe everybody else isn’t necessarily seeing?
“To separate my numbers from other people’s numbers, basically I have a defensive rating, basically, that involves the offense, defense and then the impact depending on how much they play. A guy that plays 12 minutes a game might actually have a bigger impact (with my formula) than a guy that plays 30 minutes a game. Those are the ways that I find players that I think might be out of position or have not played enough or are out of coaches’ favor with other teams and I start to focus in on those kind of guys. I think (Ramon) Sessions is a very good example. I think if you checked out, according to my numbers, the impact value was a lot stronger than what he was being played, so therefore he was under the radar to his own team. But we felt (he was valuable) and the rest is history with that.”
Q: Is this a formula you developed yourself or do you have other people in your scouting department that you worked on this with?
“No, myself. I’m just sick that way. People would be so bored with me it’d be scary. I’m up to all hours of the night doing numbers. Trying to tweak it. Trying to get it better. Seeing if it truly (corresponds). If I think a guy is an impact player, then I’ll start watching him for two or three games and go back to see if I was correct the way I view it. I also look into the person. First of all, if I like a player, then I’ll check his numbers. I always have the numbers for everybody, but I don’t get to see everybody play. But if I sit there and like, I think Josh McRoberts was an example of that. He caught my eye. Just his activeness. And I felt, let’s look at his impact numbers. Then it gives you a good gauge of what to pay a player, based off his impact. It’s interesting because you can kind of divide it back into it and actually get a number, dollar per impact, kind of thing (laughing). It comes out very interesting. Very interesting.”
Q: I think that’s almost a way you can quantify how you guys can have an advantage still despite everything else involved with the CBA.
“I think it’s a huge advantage, me personally. Mitch is more of a GM that relies on his intuitiveness of watching players. Therefore, I can rely on him because he’s not a numbers guy. He understands numbers, but we’re not arguing numbers. It’s more like, ‘This guy on paper, blah, blah, blah. What do you think of him, Mitch?’ And then I can rely on that because that’s what he does and he does it very well. So, it’s a good team effort on everything we do.”
Q: OK, I want to read you this quote ...
“Uh oh.”
Q: In 1998, you told “Sports Illustrated” magazine: "Evaluating basketball talent is not too difficult. If you grabbed 10 fans out of a bar and asked them to rate prospects, their opinions would be pretty much identical to those of the pro scouts."
“I didn’t say that. What I said was exactly that and continued on. What I said, the point I was trying to make, was that it is so scrutinized, the top 10 picks, the top 15, there are services over and over and if you’re a basketball fan you read these services. So, my point was, you can grab 10 guys and say, ‘Who are the top 10 picks?’ and they’ll have that information. Where it becomes incredible, and that’s where our scouts are incredible, is when we pick 29th, 30th, 28th. That’s where scouting comes in to play because really (the top 10) is set, it’s (the bottom 10) where you really have to know what you’re doing.
“So, it was a compliment to our scouts and whoever wrote that, I forgot who it was, it was just completely unfair because he stopped (the quote). He put those three dots and that means it still goes on. He chopped it off there to make me look stupid. My point was it’s so well covered, that the top 10-15 guys are pretty much picked and where your abilities shine are when you’re picking 28th year after year after year.”
Q: So it was taken out of context.
“Totally. But, I don’t know how to get rid of it. Even you’re bringing it up. It’s attached and ... you know. I tried to inform people of exactly how that was. It wasn’t misquoted. They just cut it off.”
Q: This goes along with you saying that you tried to inform people. You did choose to stay out of the spotlight for awhile. Why did you make that decision?
“To stay out of the spotlight? I’d say that’s my personality. I’m just not an attention-getter kind of guy. You know, ‘Look at me.’ I like to win championships and that’s basically my focus, keep us on top. We work very hard as a team, Mitch, myself my dad to keep us on top. As long as we’re winning and winning championships and playing well and all those kind of things, I don’t need to be credited for things. What happened was, basically because I wasn’t taking the credit, because I wasn’t out there, they started pinning the bad things on me and not the good things. So, I felt it was time to get out and let people know who I am.”
Q: Do you think that’s been a good decision so far?
“I think so. I think it’s been good overall.”
Q: Were you aware of the reputation that was starting to build? I guess when people don’t know, they start to attach things erroneously.
“Yeah, probably a mistake on my part not addressing it sooner. I think a red flag would have been the Rudy Tomjanovich (hiring). That was again decisions by the three of us and because of his health, he had to quit and it became I picked a guy who quit. I don’t follow that at all. So, that was probably a red flag if people don’t know me, they’re going to start attacking me that way. So, yeah, I probably should have came out a little bit earlier.”
Q: Let’s go to the future. You did say you could see Kobe winning titles Nos. 6, 7 and 8 with the team. Tell me and tell the fans and the readers why you guys are capable despite all the challenges. Your competition in Miami, Oklahoma City and Chicago is young and starting to hit their prime. You guys are getting a little older, even though you did get Sessions. You can’t just outspend the competition every year, like you’ve been able to do in the past ...
“We haven’t outspent the competition to win our championships. If you go back, we’re not the highest paid payroll.”
Q: That’s true, you weren’t the highest payroll, but you were top five...
“Well, yeah. So were the other teams when they won. If you want to correlate championships to payroll, you have to spend money to win championships. That’s not a question. But if you say you bought a championship, I would argue that. We also, if you look at our team, we’ve developed our team. In the old CBA it was 10.5 percent (raises year to year) and if you keep your team intact, you will spend more and more. Basically we were under the luxury tax when we started this team winning championships, and it grew because we kept our team. Not because we bought our players.
“That’s a big difference and it’s a sensitive subject when it comes to, ‘Oh, we just bought our way to this.’ No, we developed our way to it and it’s cost us money because we kept our team intact. You’ll see it in Oklahoma. Big time. Watch their payroll go from $48-52 million. They’ll be in the 70s or 80s if they keep their team intact. Especially if you win, you have that pressure.”
Q: But still, there are certainly challenges that exist and you stated your goal of championships No. 6, 7 and 8 for Kobe and I think everyone in L.A. would love to see it happen. How do you do it? You said you make smart decisions, obvious. But, how do you do it?
“We have a 25-year-old center, so I don’t think he’s old. I don’t look at Pau Gasol, the way he plays, as being ‘old,’ because he’s not a power player. He’s more of a finesse player. So, those kind of guys can last (for) who knows (how long). Kobe is just basically an incredible human being. I mean, you can’t slow the guy down. So, how do you put a number on his age? He should be old now. But he’s not. So, when I say 6,7,8, the reason I say that is because I don’t think we’re as old as people say we are. We just got a 25-year-old point guard and Ron Artest (Metta World Peace) is one of the top 10 players, top five players, defensively and he has a very big impact on games. You can see it. The offense will come back to him. He’s been an offensive player before. As long as his defense is intact, I’m extremely happy.
“Do I think we can win it this year? I think we really, really can. I’m very confident we have a big shot of winning this thing. To repeat? I don’t know what would stop us. Let’s win this one first, if we can. But to keep going, I think we’re OK.”
Q: How does Mike Brown fit in to that picture. I know he came to the precipice with Cleveland, losing in the Finals. Was that part of what attracted you to him? Was it his hunger to try to win a championship as well?
“I think he probably has a little chip on his shoulder to win one. He’s been there. He knows how the playoffs go. He’s been through rounds. He’s had superstars. He is very capable. You can hear that when he speaks.”
Q: Do you ever wonder or worry that the franchise has hit its peak?
“Oh my goodness. Hey, I chart stocks. I don’t know if I’ve ever charted us. The first response is, of course I don’t think we’ve hit our peak. I think we’ll continue. But, I don’t know if this is a peak and valley team. I don’t know if you can look at peaks and say that we’re peaking because we maintain pretty much a steady line. We might have blips of winning championships, but we don’t really fall off unless there is something that happens that we can’t control. I mean, how many times have we missed the playoffs? So, that would be a valley to me (laughing), know what I mean?
“ If I charted it like the stock market, I’d say that we have steady growth and that there are no peaks and valleys.”
Q: If you don’t win this year, could you envision drastic changes this offseason?
“To tell you the truth, I just focus on this year as far as our wins and losses and I don’t try to prepare based on if we win the whole thing or if we lose in the first round or not make the playoffs. Those are kneejerk reactions that we try not to do. We were more steady when we look ahead. It’s more like, we have Gasol for this many years, we have Bynum for this many years and we kind of focused in how the team is going to go. If we win a championship, I don’t think anything changes, if we lose, I don’t think hardly anything changes. We don’t do kneejerk things. So, to answer your question, no, I don’t see major changes if we lose.”
Q: Last summer Magic Johnson said, ‘This team needs to be blown up,’ obviously you hear that comment. Doesn’t mean you have to act on it and obviously you guys didn’t act on it. But, where do you think that comes from. Is that just concern for the franchise?
“From Magic’s point of view? I think he likes to light a fire under us to make sure that we’re focused on winning. I think he did that as a player. I think if a guy wasn’t paying attention, that ball would be fired at his head. I think Magic just likes to make sure that we win. My dad does the same thing, it’s just not publicized (laughing). They think alike.”
Q: I have a couple odds and ends I’d like to ask you about. Chaz Osborne, there’s been reports of his status with the team and I know on Lakers.com you refuted his background as a bartender. There’s just a lot of curiosity about Chaz. If you could indulge me and explain what his role is for the team and how he came to be a part of the Lakers’ franchise ...
“Let’s see. He became my assistant, I think 10 years ago. Maybe 11 years ago. He would travel with me on the road during my scouting trips and along the way, I started using him as a sounding board or ask his opinion on some things and I watched him develop into a very good scout. He doesn’t work for me anymore. He’s been a scout for probably three years now ... I’m not sure how many years. Time goes faster than I’d care (to admit). Before I blink an eye, it’s been five years. So, it might be five years that he’s been doing this (or) six and I can trust him because he was my assistant. It’s one of those things where people say you hired your friend, well, I’m friends with everybody. I’ll be your friend, too. I’m just a friendly guy. He was my assistant, I saw him (observe the game) and I said, ‘Why not give him a shot at scouting?’ So, he went on lots of scouting trips. Mitch has read his reports. (So have) Bill Bertka, Ronnie Lester and they’re all impressed with his reports on players. And he’s been very accurate and so, I said, OK, I’m moving on. I don’t need an assistant in that direction anymore, so, let’s try him as a scout.
“He’s a guy that I can trust and that’s important. So, where this all came from? I think there are some bitter people out there. I don’t know who. To call him a bartender that I just picked up, you know like, ‘Hey, come on, be a scout!’ It’s just foolish and misunderstood and is not a very knowledgeable person to report that kind of thing without checking on it. If you checked on it, you wouldn’t find any of that.”
Q: You mentioned on “Mason & Ireland” that with your relationship with Phil Jackson, you look at him as future brother in law ...
“(Laughing) I’m not trying to make him pop the question or anything like that, but I do view him as family. That’s where that all comes from.”
Q: Phil himself said during his exit interview with the media last season that he doesn’t really have a relationship with Jim Buss and he hasn’t spoken to him all season.
“My response to that is, my job is if there is a problem and Phil has a problem with a player or another coach or this or that then I step in and we have meetings. So, for me not to see him means that there were no problems and that’s the way that I conduct myself. I don’t know why he would say that he didn’t see me, because saw each other, let me count them ... seven times ... 15 times ... You don’t stop in the hall and say, ‘Let’s talk so that we can say that we talked.’
“He used to have lunches (in the Lakers meeting room) and I’d be in there having a lunch. I’m not sure why he said that. He’s very cryptic in his way of doing things, so maybe he just didn’t want to act like we have this tight relationship. You know, I don’t socialize with him unless my sister (Lakers executive vice president of business operations) is there and that kind of thing. It’s not like we go to the movies together. But no, I have no problems with Phil Jackson. I have a relationship that to me, it’s a relationship. He might not look at it that way.”
Q: To finish up, how would you describe being part of the family that owns the Lakers. Is it duty? Is it pride? What does it mean to your family to run the Lakers and have this thing that means so much to Los Angeles?
“It’s pride, for sure. This is just a tremendous ... I wouldn’t call it a job because it’s a life. I just am very prideful. I feel it’s something that I’ve been blessed with and I’m glad by dad has put me in this position. But, since we’ve owned them most of my life, it feels pretty normal. You know what I mean? Like, we’ve been doing this a long, long time.
“I’ve been in the offices since we bought The Forum, so coming into the office is not anything new. But, every year is fun. It’s a new challenge. But, I think pride is a good word.”
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