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http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/story/2013-08-15/jim-buss-lakers-news-dwight-howard-chris-paul-trade-clippers-hornets-david-stern
Jim Buss and the Lakers, still paying for Chris Paul
PUBLISHED 2 days and 40 minutes ago
Sean Deveney Sporting News
It would be nice if only for a few months the Lakers could get by without Jim Buss being in the news. Any chance of that happening in the wake of the team losing Dwight Howard in free agency was wiped out when Buss was interviewed by the Hollywood Reporter for a story that appears this week. Buss came across as bearing the sourest of grapes when he said of Howard, “He was never really a Laker. He was just passing through.”
Further, his sister, Jeanie Buss, indicated in the article that the working relationship between the two isn’t always peachy. Their father, the late Dr. Jerry Buss, wanted Jeanie to run the business side and Jim to run the basketball side, which sounds reasonable enough. But, Jeanie told the magazine, “I would be more comfortable if I understood what the decision process was, and I’m not always involved in it. To be held accountable by the league and not have a seat at the table when decisions are made is hard.”
The magazine also addressed Magic Johnson’s assertion that, “I don’t believe in Jim Buss,” which Buss said hurt him.
Truly, it is pile-on-Jim-Buss season, though it could be argued that it’s been in season at least since the spring of 2011, when Buss hired Mike Brown to replace Phil Jackson, and did so without consulting star guard Kobe Bryant (who wanted popular assistant Brian Shaw).
But in the midst of the pile-on, pause to grant Buss at least one indulgence, because in theory, this Lakers team should be on a much different path with All-Star Chris Paul at point guard. There was a moment not long ago when Buss seemed to get everything right. It was the winter of 2011, the league was jolted back into its post-lockout business, and Buss orchestrated a deal that promised to set the Lakers onto a brighter new future path.
They would give up power forward Pau Gasol, who would go to the Rockets. Lamar Odom would go to the Hornets, who would get three other players (Goran Dragic, Kevin Martin and Luis Scola) and a pick from Houston. But the Lakers would emerge with a new star who would be the face of the franchise going forward: Chris Paul.
We know the ending. The deal was killed by David Stern, then acting in the capacity of the Hornets’ decision-maker, because the league owned the team and Stern felt New Orleans needed younger assets. In retrospect, it would have been a good deal for the Hornets (now the Pelicans) and likely would have gone through had the team not been owned by the NBA.
Consider how much different the Lakers would look now had Paul been allowed to come aboard. Losing Gasol would have been difficult, but one move that Buss did make that was widely bashed was dumping Lamar Odom for a trade exception—which was prescient in hindsight. He also resisted calls to trade Andrew Bynum for Howard that winter, a decision that was mostly the right one for the short-term. Bynum was an All-Star that year, while Howard unraveled in Orlando.
Had the Lakers reconsidered on the Howard-for-Bynum move, as they did last summer, they’d have been left with a core of Paul and Howard, with Bryant preparing to (eventually) slip into retirement. That would have kept them from signing Steve Nash to a three-year deal, one that looks shaky when you consider his age (39) and injury trouble (he missed 32 games last year).
Howard never really fit with last year’s Lakers, but that would have been different had Paul been in town. If Bryant was too intense for Howard last year, and Howard was too loose for Bryant, Paul—who is plenty loose off the court but very intense on it—would be the perfect guy to mitigate the tension between the two.
Where Nash was not healthy enough to really take control of the offense, Paul would have no doubt run the show and established a better inside-outside balance. Without Gasol, the Lakers could have added a role-player forward who would better complement Howard.
Everything that went wrong with last year’s Lakers—the chemistry issue, the misfit roster, the coaching upheaval—might never have happened with Paul on board. That’s the tricky part about being in the head honcho’s chair, as Buss has been for more than two years now. The future can take drastic turns that stem from small things.
Jerry West’s deal to bring Shaquille O’Neal to the Lakers could have fallen through, Gregg Popovich’s Spurs could have wound up with the No. 2 pick in the 1997 (Tim Duncan) draft, LeBron James could have told Pat Riley he was staying in Cleveland. It’s a thin line between a genius executive and one who gets the Jim Buss pile-on.
Some of that has been Buss’s own fault. But much of it stems back to that one near-miss, the deal for Paul that got away. That wasn’t his fault, but he has been paying the price ever since. ________________________________________
"Take the surprise out your voice Shaq."-The REAL CP3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2H5K-BUMS0
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