The FALL of the Los Angeles Lakers

The FALL of the Los Angeles Lakers

[Music] now I promise this is going to be my last Lakers ranting video for at least a month the reason I felt inspired to make this video today is because I’m looking around the organization I’m looking around the media and I’m looking on social media at all the fans talking and everybody’s looking and pointing at the wrong things not understanding the history of the Lakers organization and not really understand why the Lakers have fallen as a lifelong Lakers fan who is the son of a lifelong Lakers fan I feel well equipped to explain this story to you so before I can explain the fall of the Lakers organization let me first quickly explain its rise since the very infancy days of the NBA the Lakers organization has always been among the most valuable teams in the league they were often competitive but throughout the 1960s they were often just the second best to the Boston Celtics as they were losing to them in the NBA Finals over and over again in Los Angeles the organization won their first NBA Championship in 1972 and they remained a destination location for Superstar players and were a competitive team in the league but they didn’t truly make their stamp on the league leag and discover their culture and identity until 1979 that was when they got their new majority owner a man by the name of Dr Jerry bus Mr bus was a passionate Lakers fan who had dreamed for many years of one day owning the Los Angeles Lakers and in 1979 he finally got his opportunity Jerry bus wasn’t just a Lakers fan but he was a successful businessman and an investor he knew how to win on the business level and had an obsession with winning even before his job was about the game of basketball soon after bus took over the team they drafted Magic Johnson who’s often the person who gets the most credit for the showtime era but the thing is that was really Dr bus who was shaping that era behind the scenes he was the one that built up the culture of Showtime immediately upon running the team he introduced cheerleaders to the Lakers Stadium calling them the Laker Girls and it was his belief that they needed to put on a show and it was their job to be as entertaining as possible while winning championships and winning is exactly what they did as Magic Johnson has stated in the past the one thing that him and bus had in common more than anything else was their absolute insatiable desire to win Dr bus wasn’t always the one making the basketball decisions in fact he usually wasn’t in most cases but as a winning businessman he knew how to put the right people in place to succeed he usually made good decisions s about hiring the right general managers and right Executives to support his cause among his peers he was arguably the most respected individual in the sport and among the players he was revered but also seen as an approachable figure who cared deeply about their best interest bus was excellent at what he did and he built the Lakers into being a winning franchise in fact he was responsible for 10 of their NBA championships between 1980 in 2010 unfortunately Jerry’s health started to decline and at a certain point he wasn’t able to be all that Hands-On in February of 2013 Dr bus passed away leaving the Lakers organization to his children gym bus and Genie bus now obviously Jim and jeie did not have the same reputation as their father and at the time it was Jim alongside of the general manager Mitch Cub Who was appointed to oversee basketball operations on on the other hand jeie was just a high-profile person within the Lakers crowd who was actually dating the former five-time Lakers championship head coach Phil Jackson the season that Jerry bus actually passed away was the 2012 to 2013 season which was a tumultuous year for the Lakers to say the least famously this was the season where they acquired Dwight Howard and Steve Nash to go alongside of Pal Gasol Ron arest and Kobe Bryant prior to that season starting many people were predicting this Lakers team to go 73 and9 and crush the Bulls 72-10 record as you all know that didn’t come close to actually happening as the team was riddled with injuries and chemistry issues but one of their biggest problems was the decision made by the general management after firing Mike Brown just five games into the regular season the Lakers had to make a decision about their new head coach one of the candidates who was ready and available to take the job was the 11 time NBA champion head coach Phil Jackson who already had plenty of success with Kobe Bryant Hal Gasol and who knew how to win with a twin tower lineup like he did with Gasol and Bam if he was to get the job now he would be doing it with Pal Gasol and Dwight Howard but in all of their endless wisdom Jim bus and Mitch cup decided to throw a curveball and instead hired Mike Danton simply for the fact that he had experience with Steve Nash as they had famously been on the Phoenix Suns together in the mid 2000s running the Suns 7sec offense the problem is that Steve Nash was now one of the most injury-prone players in the entire league and he was quickly approaching 40 years old so I hated the move then and I still hate it now what’s amazing is that after not getting the job Phil Jackson accurately predicted all the problems this Lakers team would have with Mike Danton take a list listen Sunday night at midnight I get a call from Mitch saying we’ve hired another coach Mike Danton but I said you know Mitch what your reasoning and he said you we think he’s the best coach for this group of guys so what do you think of danton’s Coach Mike with the right Personnel is a great coach okay and this Personnel really wasn’t quite fit for Mike’s coaching tell me why well he likes a he likes a three-point shoot shooting uh group of guys he likes twos and threes in the corner his great guard Nash was on the team obviously Steve’s a great guard he could distribute the ball but that other big guy has to be a they call it now a stretch four he has to be able to shoot three-pointers yeah pow wasn’t quite fit into that pow and power together okay too big to to too much of a a load for that post and he doesn’t really like guys in the post he likes guys outside after passing on Phil Jackson it was a snowball effect from then on as the Lakers were struggling to earn a playoff spot and because of that dantony started playing Kobe almost every single minute of every single game leading up to his Achilles tear and of course without the Mamba they were eliminated in the first round by the far superior San Antonio Spurs then came the NBA off season with Mitch cup Che and Jim bus at the helm of decision- making Dwight Howard was clearly unhappy with the Lakers organization but regardless they still pathetically begged him to stay hanging up banners outside of staple center playing for him to please stay which made the whole thing just look even more embarrassing when Dwight Howard ended up deciding to leave and the few years afterwards came some really terrible and poorly thought out decisions then it was their responsibility to rebuild around Kobe and give him the best chance possible to succeed sure Kobe was dealing with a multitude of injuries but for the few instances that he was out there he really didn’t have much talent to go to battle with for a while the Lakers name was attached to the free agency of Carmelo Anthony but that never materialized then there was rumors about Dwayne Wade and they couldn’t get that done and then there was DeMarcus Cousins and they couldn’t get that done then there was LaMarcus Aldridge who was famously incredibly underwhelmed in the interview and decided to head to San Antonio instead then with a free agency of Kevin Durant they couldn’t even get an interview a franchise that was once known as the most prestigious and successful brand in the entire league now couldn’t even get an interview view from a top tier player Kobe was forced to go to battle with guys like Robert sakra as he was chucking up shot after shot while only shooting 35% from the field and in the Mamba last season of his career the Lakers went 17 and 65 during the Jim bus and Mitch cup era so after the retirement of Kobe Bryant Jim bus and Mitch cup were met with a gigantic task of having to rebuild after Kobe Bryant and heading into that ever crucial free agency there was a lot of big fish to be had and one of the first decisions was to sign Timothy moff to an expensive long-term contract as a Lakers fan I was utterly shocked and to this day I can’t explain the logic of it immediately this move handicapped us for many years it would be one thing if Los Angeles was desperate to get as much talent as possible and give a fat contract for a single year but to do it for many years was absolutely crazy considering that this guy’s most famous play was an instance where he got dunked on mozgov was coming off of a season where he had just averaged six points per game and sure his Cleveland Cavaliers had just won the championship but I don’t know maybe that had something to do with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving and not Timothy mozgov soon after that the gym bus era got even worse as they overpaid lual Deng and gave him all also a long-term contract at this point not only were the Lakers struggling to appeal to free agents but for the foreseeable future it wasn’t even possible for them to do so because they use all of their salary cap on below average players as I said before this was the dark ages for the Los Angeles Lakers after those embarrassing years were finally over Mitch cup and Jim bus were out the door and replacing Jim was his sister Genie bus and it seemed like a great change at the time but now it looks like this sibling is just more of the same she’s let her drama seep into the organization she ostracized arguably the greatest executive in basketball history Jerry West all because he didn’t approve of her sleeping with the head coach Phil Jackson many years ago and now her and Rob pinka have proven time and time again that they don’t have what it takes to leave this Lakers organization to be the glory team of their father’s generation everywhere I look it looks like whether it’s the media or social media is looking to blame people but usually it’s LeBron Rob pinka the Lakers head coach the passing of Kobe Bryant or whatever it may be but if you ask me the moment the Lakers were no longer the Lakers was the instant that Jerry bus passed away so what do you guys think will the Lakers ever return to their former glory or is it officially a new era where they will diminish to be just like any other team within the league I look forward to hearing your thoughts and in the comment section below thanks for watching as always make sure to like And subscribe for more basketball content and I’ll see you guys in the next video

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The game of Basketball has been my passion since I was 5 years old. I grew up as a kid watching my dad’s recorded VHS tapes of playoff games through the 70s and 80s, and collected all the Basketball cards. Something about the game and what it represents just hooked me from a very young age.
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