Lakers executive VP of president of business operations Jeanie Buss updated her memoir "Laker Girl," and in it, she's giving a lashing to her brother Jim, who's quickly building a legacy of being opposite of his late genius father Jerry.
Last year, when the Lakers made the peculiar move of firing Mike Brown just five games into the season, it seemed like Phil Jackson was the obvious leading candidate to fill the position. It even seemed that way to Jim, who had a contentious relationship with Jackson. According to Jeanie, her brother called asking if she thought he and Jackson could work together. Jeanie told him that she couldn't be in the middle of it and to ask Jackson for himself.
After all, Jim is the executive VP of player personnel and that's kind of his job.
So after the fact, Jackson gets a late night phone call from Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak saying the team hired D'Antoni, with the belief that they would take a public relations hit that would blow over after in a month.
No joke, and Jeanie said she couldn't believe it either. This is from an excerpt of the book published in the Los Angeles Times:
I felt that I got played. Why did they have to do that? Why did Jim pull Phil back into the mix if he wasn’t sincere about it? . . .
Phil wasn’t looking for the job, and then he wasted 36 hours of his life preparing for it when they were never in a million years going to hire him anyway.
How do you do that to your sister? How do you do that to Phil Jackson?
It's hard not to feel bad for the folks that work under Jim Buss.
