Professional basketball has long passed its expiration date but there was a time when the games mattered. Los Angeles, in fact, had a pretty good team and its standout player, the guy that hit big shot after big shot was a dude named Dr. Jerry Buss.

Nobody did more for a sports fan than Doctor Buss. He put his money where our hearts were. He was a master planner and he worried simultaneously about winning games today and building a legacy for tomorrow.

In his whole life, he only fucked up one thing … dying. It always blew my mind that a man so meticulous in life could have been so irresponsible in death. How could a man so absolutely obsessed with all-time greatness end up turning the ball over in the final seconds of the biggest game?

I always – always – thought Dr. Buss’ signature moment would be in death. That he would never leave his life’s work, his Picasso, the Los Angeles Lakers, to amateurs (his children). Leaving the Lakers to the Buss kids would be like a fine restauranteur leaving his French restaurant to four knuckleheads that sat at the bar every night.

No, when he died I really believed that he would order the Lakers be sold (to a finite list of prospects that he hand-picked). That then, through his will, he would give some cash to his evil spawn and then he would have had in place a lifetime contract with Jerry West, who would then make all basketball decisions for the Lakers until he died a natural death.

Clearly, upon Dr. Buss’ death, someone was gonna get f’d, either his kids or his fans. Sorry LA sports people, but at least you have two soccer teams. Oh ya, and if you hand over a famous sports team to the amateurs sitting at the bar, it never gets better.

♦

Magic Johnson isn’t really a person anymore, he’s a caricature, a kind of circus act. That he’s somehow a business genius, a community savant, has never been true. He was a good basketball player with a good personality – that’s it. He was used by Lakers management as a pawn, a shield. They figured that if they pushed Magic to the front of the tire fire that is now the Los Angeles Lakers, he would mask their incompetence and protect them from customer backlash since no Lakers fan wants to beat up and point the finger at Magic.

President Magic Johnson was in over his head. Lakers management certainly knew that would be the case but decided they would use their most beloved alumni as a human sacrifice anyway.

It’s best now to never contemplate the future as it pertains to the Lakers. Dwell only on the past, when the Lakers had a player that was pure magic and an owner who invented Showtime.

Photo on Visual Hunt