Jim Buss has gotten a bad rep as one of the Los Angeles Lakers owners with his sister, Jeanie. So this latest news may have some Lakers fans happy maybe.With the Lakers missing the playoffs for the first time since 2005, it's time for some rebuilding. It starts this offseason with the Lakers hoping to get a top 3 pick so they can land the likes of Jabari Parker and such in the 2014 NBA Draft. Along with that, there's free agency.
Next season is a big one for the Lakers. It could end up being Kobe Bryant's final season of his NBA career, and the Lakers want him to go out the right way with a sixth ring.
Of course, if that doesn't happen and a few years after that when Kobe is gone, what happens to the Lakers? For Jim Buss, he says he will actually step down from the franchise. Yeah, no joke. Buss says that if the Lakers aren't contenders within the next three-to-four years, he will actually resign from the team.
“I was laying myself on the line by saying, if this doesn’t work in three to four years, if we’re not back on the top — and the definition of top means contending for the Western Conference, contending for a championship — then I will step down because that means I have failed,” Buss said, per the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t know if you can fire yourself if you own the team … but what I would say is I’d walk away and you guys figure out who’s going to run basketball operations because I obviously couldn’t do the job.”
Buss can't all of the blame. After all, it was his late father, Dr. Jerry Buss, who hired Mike Brown and Mike D'Antoni. This offseason is huge for the Buss family and their franchise.
I'm sure Lakers fan would want to see Jim Buss gone, of course, but they're going to have to pay the price of seeing their team not being contenders. With that said, the purple-and-gold community might as well have to just settle with the 54-year-old.
