Lakers News: Rival Calls Out Organization for Treatment of Coaches

One source within the NBA takes a shot at Lakers brass amid an ongoing head coaching search.

Dec 22, 2020; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss (left) and general manager Rob Pelinka wear face masks during a game against the LA Clippers at Staples Center. The Clippers defeated the Lakers. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

It's been a rough couple of days for the Los Angeles Lakers. As of Tuesday, they are still searching for their 29th head coach in franchise history, and there's no sign of that ending.

It's still being determined where the Lakers will go from here after losing out on the highly coveted Dan Hurley of UConn. 

The Lakers took a big swing at Hurley and missed in embarrassing fashion. Arguably, the best coach in college basketball turned down the bright lights in Los Angeles to continue to coach in Connecticut. 

It hasn't only been a few bad days for the Lakers but a few bad years. The Lakers are searching for their third coach in five seasons, and while they've had some success in that time frame, it's been quite a carousel.  

That's a bad sign for the purple and gold and a toxic reflection on the front office. The Laker job, while still highly coveted, has seemed to lose its flare over the past few seasons. 

That's been evident over the past few years, and one anonymous assistant NBA coach says the Lakers job isn't what it once was. 

"It just isn't a good job," the assistant coach said. "They negotiate as if it's some grand honor to coach the Lakers, but the reality is you're looking at a couple years before you're going to get scapegoated. That's obviously the case with most coaches, but the Lakers in particular don't seem to value the position."

It all starts at the top with any company or organization, and for the past 11 years, the Lakers' front office has been a dumpster fire. The Lakers have lost their aura after decades of the former owner and arguably the greatest of all time in that department, Dr. Jerry Buss, spending years building it up. All that has seemed to go away in the past 11 years, and the constant turnover and toxicity in the front office are to blame. 

The loss of Hurley was a microcosm of what the Lakes have had to deal with: numerous lowball offers to high-level coaches, failure to land top-level players in free agency, and constant lackluster effort to improve the team via trade. All of this falls under vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka, who will take the majority of the heat, but is ultimately the responsibility of majority owner Jeanie Buss. 

Jeanie deserves a ton of the blame, and with no plans to sell the team anytime soon, it may get a lot worse before it gets better. 

More Lakers: Dan Hurley Rejected LA Offer to Take Significantly Less Money from UConn