On October 12, 2020, in game 6 of the Finals, the Lakers defeated the Heat 106-93 and lifted the 17th championship trophy in team history.
The Lakers waited a full decade for this championship, during which they experienced the darkest years in team history, the Kobe era came to an end, the team missed the playoffs for six consecutive years, and even if James joined, it did not immediately pull them out of the quagmire of defeat.
Boss substitution, high-level reorganization, coaching class, lakers become the "film and television base" of the palace fight drama, their internal right and wrong, the degree of excitement is better than their game.
In this context, the Lakers in the 2019-20 season were embarked on the journey with various question marks, and the finale of the championship made them breathe a sigh of relief from top to bottom.
"We crave respect, Pelinka needs it, Vogel needs it, and I do the same." James said after winning the championship.
That respect came in October 2020, but also from that moment on to leave the "countdown" again, the Lakers' expected rebuilding championship culture flashed like a meteor.
The Lakers, who returned to the top of the league, opened the operation of the mystery in the offseason, dismantled the championship lineup, and the top ten players in the 2020 playoffs gave up four, namely McGee, Howard, Rondo and Danny Green.
Such a team breakup is not completely blind, the Lakers have their reasons, such as Howard, he asked for a more important tactical role in the contract renewal negotiations, and the Lakers said that they could not arrange it, so the talks collapsed. Another example is Green, the Lakers sent him away in exchange for Schroeder.
The problem lies precisely with Schroeder.
The lakers for Schroeder is fundamentally to add a player who holds the ball core type, to reduce the pressure for James, especially James, James suffered an injury in the first year of the Lakers' play, although the second year won the championship, but there is a view within the league that is not recognized but there is room for discussion, that is, the regular season is suspended for 4 months due to the epidemic, which is of great benefit to the recovery of fatigued bodies such as James, so that he can return to the "full blood" state.
The Lakers get a player who can organize the offense and score points, which is equivalent to adding an insurance, which makes sense, but in the actual implementation, Schroeder's joining did not play the effect that the Lakers wanted, but caused many complaints in the team, and the thick eyebrow brother admitted that Schroeder's feeding was far less comfortable than Rondo.
With the Lakers out of the first round of the playoffs, Schroeder's experiment failed, but the Lakers did not change the concept of finding a third star, and they were more aggressive in operation, carrying out a big purge in the summer of 2021, this time they got Wei Shao.
The Lakers originally had three choices, Westbrook, DeRozan and Hield, who finally made the decision to choose Westbrook, it is still a mystery, but from the perspective of Jenny Bass's way of using people like "old time", the mystery seems to be not difficult to guess, the Lakers want a card face that can pay tribute to the old dynasty, and the historical three-double king is obviously a high Derozan file.
However, the Lakers' experiment failed again, Wei Shao worked hard, the team also did its best, but it was incompatible, and triggered a series of chain reactions, the Lakers' operation in the offseason was to sacrifice defensive resources for offensive improvement, but the result was that the offense did not rise and fell, the defense also plummeted, in order to solve the spatial obstacles caused by Wei Shao's unstable projection, Zhan Mei took turns to play the center, the load did not decrease but increased, the thick eyebrows were injured and injured, the old Zhan's knee was faintly painful, and the Lakers struggled in the playoff area.
The Lakers need to change, but they can only come up with the 2027 first-round picks, Nunn and Tucker in the trading market, and nothing is changed. The Lakers renewed Tucker's three-year, $30.8 million contract in the 2021 offseason, and their offer for Caruso's renewal for less than two years and $15 million, which inevitably makes people wonder whether the Lake tube was occupied by the mud virus at that time.
We brushed up the lakers' operations from 2019, they exchanged young players and future draft picks for thick eyebrows, this is no problem, change for a whole money, but also won a crown, it is a success, but then the Lakers embarked on a series of mistakes of no return, the lineup that has a championship-level chemical reaction was dismantled, and the expected third big man did not appear, leaving only a farce such as the need to press the team's first high-paid key moment on the bench to have a chance to win.
There's a question here, James's style of play, whether it's the right choice for him to find a teammate with a core type of ball, or to put it another way, if it's not Westbrook, but DeRozan coming to the Lakers, can he play at the MVP level like he did in the Bulls?
This question inevitably has a "gunpowder flavor", let's leave it aside for the time being, and whether it is correct or not, it is the choice of the Lakers management, and why they are wrong after winning the championship, is it not possible?
The Lakers are a very special presence in the NBA team, most of the owners are not based on the team as the main business, but the Bass family is not so, the Lakers are their cash cow, which also triggered the palace fight.
When The elder Buzz was alive, Jim Bass was put in charge of the team, Jenny was in charge of business development, and when the elder Buzz died, his children received a will, which included a dethronement clause stipulating that if the Members of the Bass family did not perform well in the Position of Lakers owner, they could be removed by means of an internal family shareholder meeting.
"I asked Jim, how long exactly will it take for us to be a strong team again? The strong team I was referring to was getting to the second round of the playoffs, the Western Conference Finals or the Finals," Jenny recalled, "and he told me at the time that it would take about three years." ”
By 2017, the Lakers' situation had not improved in the slightest, and Jenny squeezed Jim out of the boss position through the family shareholders' meeting and replaced him. However, this does not represent Jenny's complete victory, on the one hand, Jim retaliated by leaving Mozgov and Ruhr-Deng's garbage contract (until this season, the Lakers were still paying Deng's salary), on the other hand, the old Buzz's will was also valid for Jenny, and once she could not lead the Lakers back to glory, she would repeat Jim's mistakes.
In the 2018-19 season, the Lakers still did not enter the playoffs in the first year of having James, Jim and big brother Johnny Bass tried to kick Jenny out, when the situation was close to getting out of control, Walton was off class, "Magician" resigned, they are all members of Jenny's inner circle, such a personnel change, representing the Lakers' internal struggle has been white-hot.
Because of this, the 2020 championship is a blessing for Jenny, allowing her to play a beautiful turnaround battle in the palace fight, and also makes James and agent Rich Paul into Jenny's core circle, the old Zhan is the Lakers' trump card, "Rich Paul" is the league's top three agents, he single-handedly operated James and thick eyebrows to join the Lakers. Especially in the battle for thick eyebrows, "Rich Paul" directly warned the Celtics who participated in the competition that if they forced the trade, thick eyebrows would not renew their contracts, leaving the Green Army empty.
Jenny was very touched by such a move as "Rich Paul", defeating the Lakers' nemesis Celtic in the trading market and winning the championship a year after the trade, there is no better plot than this.
That's why James will praise the Cavaliers and Thunder management at Cleveland All-Star Weekend, and also say controversial words such as "the door to Cleveland has not been closed", why there are rumors that "Rich Paul" asked the Lakers to trade to Wall (who is also Rich Paul's client), although "Rich Paul" real-name denied, because James and his agency team, in the process of Jenny's foothold, played a crucial role, they got the right to speak, can express their dissatisfaction, Even in a public manner.
The Lakers' complex internal environment has created a small circle that Jenny can trust in the field of work, in addition to the above-mentioned few, there are the late superstar Kobe Bryant, Kobe Bryant's agent, Lakers general manager Pelinka, Jenny's ex-fiancé, the legendary coach Phil Jackson, they are all standing in the foreground, and two are behind the scenes, Cote Lambis and his wife Linda Lambis.
Lambis was a veteran of the Lakers when he played, worked for the Lakers after retiring, served as Jackson's assistant, and was also a head coach himself, the most famous event of his career was to like pornographic social media. Linda is an old employee of the Lakers, since the old Buzz bought the Lakers, she has worked for the team, and is responsible for market operations with Jenny, and is called a girlfriend by Jenny who "can be trusted with life".
The Rambis couple's intervention in the Affairs of the Lakers is multifaceted, such as the 2019 coach selection, when the Lakers were generally optimistic about Tyrone Lu, but Linda disagreed, the reason was that she hoped that Lambis could enter the coaching staff of Lu's guidance, in addition to Linda's coaching ability for Lu's coaching was also quite suspicious, thinking that he purely relied on James to brush results, there was no real talent, so Linda suggested to Jenny that Lu's contract should be synchronized with old Zhan's contract, when James's contract expires, when Lu's guidance will leave, It was a shame for the championship coach, who gave up the Lakers and went to their city rivals, the Clippers.
The Lakers ultimately chose Vogel, and although Lambis failed to join Vogel's teaching assistantship, he often attended coaching meetings and pointed fingers. As a person with a 28% winning percentage in his coaching career, Rambis looked down on Lu's coaching and pointed out the country in front of Vogel, which was a very funny scene.
Jenny is not unaware that nepotism will have a negative effect, but the Lakers' infighting has forced her to compress the decision-making circle and only let a few trusted people participate, which is also a kind of helplessness, even her own brothers may "stab" from the back at any time, who else can Jenny trust?
There is one important person in Jenny's circle who is excluded, and that is Jerry West. West's relationship with the Lakers is no longer at the level of exclusion, but is close to breaking. According to West, the Lakers canceled his lifetime season pass, which was once the promise made to him by the old Bath, and now the Lakers have withdrawn it without giving any explanation.
"I felt like I was being thrown away like garbage, and some guys in the Lakers, I don't say Jenny, it's those people, it's those people, I can't understand, let alone work with them." 」 West said.
West was a lakers celebrity when he played, and he created the "performance era" and "OK dynasty" during his management tenure, which is definitely a Lakers meritorious figure, but now it has fallen into such treatment, which is inevitable to be lamented.
There are two sides to everything, and West's deteriorating relationship with the Lakers actually began in the old Bath period. West as a manager is known for his discernment, especially in 1996 through the trial training firm Bryant is the Lakers' future star is a classic, but the old Buzz believes that West's ability has been exaggerated, the typical example is the 1979 draft, the Lakers have a champion, West is interested in Moncliffe, think that the "magician" playing is too fancy and impractical.
Old Bath, who had just bought the Lakers at the time, made a phone call after learning of West's selection tendencies: "Jerry, you have two choices, one is to choose a magician, and the other is to choose a new boss for yourself." ”
The Lakers were very generous to the players in the Bath era, the old Buzz gave the "Magician" shares, Jim offered a maximum salary extension after Kobe Bryant was seriously injured, which also had Jenny's support, but the Bass family was more stingy with the management, during the first crown of the "OK Dynasty", the old Buzz and West had differences in the renewal of the contract, which was one of the reasons why West left the Lakers after winning the championship in 2000.
Not just because of the money, there was another important factor in West's breakup with the Lakers at the time, and that was Jackson. Jackson has always had a basketball godfather dream, and he aspires to be successful in coaching and running the team like his old rival Riley. Jackson joined the Lakers as the manager of the Bulls Dynasty, began to seize power, and even banned West from participating in the team meeting, which made West very sad, and Jackson won the championship in the first year of coaching the Lakers, and the relationship with Jenny gradually warmed up, and West, who originally had a contradiction with the old Bath, did not want to be entangled in the Lakers and chose to leave.
West is with hatred, there is inevitably some retaliation, such as the news that Kobe Bryant wants to transfer in 2007, that is, West told Klaus, Klaus is the general manager of the Bulls Dynasty, although he is no longer in office at that time, but there is still close contact with the Bulls management, the Bulls get the news immediately after the public, so that the Lakers into passivity.
West served as a senior consultant for the Warriors from 2011 to 2017, helping to build another dynasty division, he wanted to return to the Lakers in 2017, but Jenny did not agree, because the Lakers already had a consultant candidate, that is, Linda's husband Lambis, West went to the Clippers in a rage and played an important role in recruiting Leonard, when West told the team of "Little Card" that the Lakers are a bad team inside.
Complex interpersonal relationships, like a large net covering the Lakers, make them feel bound left and right when they exert their fists and feet, although in the fall of 2020, they shot down the champion's punch, but then they were caught in the net, 499 days have passed since that victory, and they are deeper and deeper and more confused, and the farther and longer they go.
When the Lakers can break out of the net again, the answer is still floating in the wind, can not catch the hand, and old Zhan is willing to leave the Lakers with little time to "solve the problem".