LeBron James’ battle to take the LA Lakers back to the top

With LeBron James in purple and gold, the LA Lakers have finally put an end to a long period of chaos.

NBA superstar LeBron James would only make the shift from Cleveland to Los Angeles once he knew the team’s management issues were solved. Picture: AFP

Kobe Bryant is 40 and has been retired from the NBA for two seasons.

History will judge that the Black Mamba, as he liked to call himself, probably stayed too long; after 35 he was indulged by the Los Angeles Lakers who in investing so much in him — emotionally as well as financially — at the expense of younger, fresher legs probably contributed to their decade-long decay.

Indeed, in Bryant’s last year the Lakers went 17-65, the worst season in their long, illustrious history. Yet during an appearance on an American talk show this week, Bryant was asked what it would take to get him back on the floor given the Lakers’ dismal start — three straight losses — to not just the season but the LeBron James era in Tinseltown.

“If they go oh-and-five I’ll think about it,” Bryant said with a mischievous wink.

They won their fourth game, against the hapless Phoenix Suns, the night after but Bryant meant none of it, anyway.

Yet it is a measure of the desperation that surrounds this once-great team that a throwaway quip mushroomed into serious discussions on both new and old media about how Bryant would fare playing alongside the behemoth, James.

(He’s 40, and Father Time remains undefeated.) But Bryant said something else on Jimmy Kimmel Live that was far more pertinent to the Lakers’ future.

In the off-season, Lakers president Jeanie Buss consulted him on what it would take to sign James, who was looking to leave his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers for the second time in his career.

The easy answer was a four-year contract worth $US154 million ($219m). But that’s just money and other teams were prepared to make it rain for a player who may just be the greatest of all time but who, more importantly, at 33 is still one of the sport’s most dominant players.

“LeBron’s not going to come here if management isn’t figured out,” Bryant said he told Buss.

“You’ve got to make sure things are clean, things are focused going forward and it’s not chaotic as in years past.”

To say it is ruled by dysfunction does not do justice to the story of the Buss family.

Jerry Buss, the patriarch, was a chemist who got rich in real estate and bought the Lakers in 1979 and all that glittered after that was indeed purple-and-gold. With Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar they became the Showtime Lakers, winning titles and being treated like movie stars, especially Buss, who became a sort of self-styled Hugh Hefner.

Though a shrewd businessman, Buss had a soft spot for his six children, all of whom have names that also begin with J and all of whom worked within the Lakers organisation. But none was indulged more than his second-born son, Jimmy, now 58.

Jim Buss dropped out of the prestigious University of Southern California and transferred to the University of Hard Knocks. He could most often be found at racetracks. At the age of 20, he decided to become a jockey. He was 6’2” (188cm) yet his father signed him up for jockey school. Shockingly, that didn’t work. Few things ever did with Jimmy, who also managed to run his father’s horse training business into the ground.

The smart child was his daughter, Jeannie, who was dating Lakers coach Phil Jackson.

But Jerry Buss let her run the business side only. Before his death five years ago, he put Jim in charge of the basketball side.

There have been sons who have destroyed what their fathers built faster but Jim Buss tried his very best to catch them. His particular brand of ineptitude saw one of the most stable franchises in NBA history suddenly hiring and firing coaches and backroom staff, overpaying for mediocre talent and stumbling from catastrophe to controversy.

After an unthinkable five straight season of not making the playoffs, Jeannie Buss led a coup against her brother. She won.

“I must also point out that Jim has already proven to be completely unfit even in an executive vice president of basketball operations role and I recently had to replace him,” she wrote in a lawsuit. “Despite the fact that I gave my brother Jim ample time to prove himself in this role … I could not allow the damage being done to the franchise over the past few years to continue.”

Jeannie Buss has moved her brothers out of the picture. The Lakers are now run by her and Kobe Bryant’s former agent, the sharp Rob Pelinka, and Magic Johnson, who has become a successful businessman since retiring from basketball.

The road back to the top for the Lakers won’t be easy and it won’t be fast as James is surrounded by young, unproven talent. But James clearly thinks it is going to happen. Last night, as the Lakers surged at the end to take down the previously unbeaten Denver Nuggets for their second win, Bryant was sitting courtside.

He may have scored no points, but he made a hell of an assist on that win, and every one that follows as James leads the Lakers to greener pastures.