Getty Former Lakers head coach Frank Vogel.
The Los Angeles Lakers were a mess on the court this season but a lot of it stems from issues away from the court. The team’s front office appears to be a disaster. General manager Rob Pelinka is supposed to be the one in charge of basketball decisions but there have been many reports suggesting that former Lakers player and coach Kurt Rambis has a lot of power.
Linda Rambis, his wife, is close friends with team owner Jeanie Buss so those two hold more influence within the Lakers than they would for any other team. While things look bad from the outside, they might be even worse than people realize. According to former Chicago Bulls guard and current ESPN analyst Jay Williams, he has some insight into how things are run in Los Angeles and it isn’t pretty.
“I’m just trying to tell you from people that have had decades of experiences with how organizations have been ran, the things I’ve heard over the last year would blow your mind,” Williams said on Keyshawn, JWill & Max.
Those are vague comments from Williams but it doesn’t exactly paint the Lakers in a great light.
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Anonymous Coach Would’ve Fought Rambis
Williams wasn’t done giving insight into the Lakers. Dan Woike and Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times reported during the season that Rambis started attending coaching meetings when the team was struggling and even tried to push for certain rotations. According to Williams, there’s one notable head coach he knows who would’ve attacked Rambis instead of holding his tongue.
“I heard from one of my really good friends, that is a big-time coach in the league, was like, ‘I can’t imagine my owner’s friend [Linda Rambis], that[Jeanie Buss] made some kind of consultant, have the gaffe to walk in and sit in my coaching meeting to telling me what I had to do after I won a championship a couple years ago. To tell me, hey, you should think about changing up your starting lineup, your rotations … I would have slapped the hell out of that dude. It would have turned into a fight,'” Williams said.
There’s been little insight regarding how Vogel reacted to Rambis but he couldn’t have been happy. He’s been a successful coach in the NBA and won a championship. Rambis went 65-164 when he was a head coach so there’s no reason he should be giving Vogel coaching advice.
Rambis Is Here to Stay
The sad truth about the Lakers and their front office is that they aren’t going to change. Buss is too closely connected to the Rambis family and isn’t going to fire them. The current setup has worked in the past as the Lakers are less than two years removed from winning a championship.
Things are looking grim right now and fans are concerned. Luckily, the team seems to always figure out a way to eventually crawl out of these holes. The real concern is just how long it will take to get out of this current hole.
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Big-Time Coach ‘Would Have Slapped the Hell out of’ Lakers Exec if He Was Vogel