Jim Buss says his dad made the final call for the D’Antoni hire
By Ryan Donoho
The Lakers made headlines last year, when they chose Mike D’Antoni to be their coach over Phil Jackson. They fired Mike Brown after a 1-4 start, and it was reported that Phil Jackson was mulling a return to the sideline for the Lakers. Mitch Kupchak reportedly called Jackson at midnight to let him know they were going with D’Antoni. That angered Laker fans, and chants of “WE WANT PHIL!” are filling LA Live to this day.
In theory, the hire was actually smart. You combine the best pick and roll point guard in Steve Nash, the best roll man with Dwight Howard, and the best pick and roll coach in D’Antoni, and you end up with a pretty deadly attack. Without a training camp, and a myriad of injuries, the season was a disaster. D’Antoni eventually came around, and started running HORNS sets with Pau Gasol at the elbow, and they finished the year 28-12. With the slowed style, they succeeded, but the blame is now being put on Dwight Howard, who didn’t want to play the pick and roll, according to Steve Nash. Well Howard’s gone, but D’Antoni is still here, and now we know why he came around in the first place. According to ESPN LA’s Ramona Shelburne, the decision was the late Dr. Jerry Buss:
Jim Buss said his father made final call on D'Antoni b/c "in the future we had to rebuild, he felt that Phil was not a guy to rebuild."
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) September 11, 2013
Jim Buss said his dad warned that he was "going to get pelted" when he took over. Jim told him that's fine as long as "you believe in me"
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) September 11, 2013
Well, there you have it. The Buss kids, especially Jim, have gone under much criticism, but there isn’t a negative word said about Dr. Buss. We may never know what truly happened, but I don’t see Buss lying about this. We will see how the Lakers do this season, as they had to patch up the holes with minnumum players, and with Kobe’s return still uncertain.