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Malika AndrewsESPN
As drama swirls around the Los Angeles Lakers, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said he has “tremendous” confidence in team owner Jeanie Buss and believes the team will turn things around.
“I know Jeanie knows how to manage a team,” Silver said Wednesday morning in a wide-ranging interview on ESPN’s Get Up. “Sure, when things start to go wrong, a lot of fingers get pointed. But they’ll figure it out.”
Since the regular season ended, Magic Johnson resigned during an impromptu news conference and the team parted with head coach Luke Walton. A slew of candidates were interviewed — Ty Lue and Monty Williams were both offered the job — before the team settled on Frank Vogel as the next head coach.
The Buss family is one of the longest-tenured ownership groups in the NBA. That and the franchise’s championship history are reasons Silver believes the team will get back to their winning ways.
Like Buss, Silver said he didn’t have any prior notice that Johnson was stepping down. “I watched that press conference live like everyone else did and didn’t know it was coming,” Silver said. “But I think he spoke from the heart.”
Silver also addressed a lunch conversation he had with LeBron James‘ agent, Rich Paul, which ESPN’s Baxter Holmes reported on Tuesday.
“He was in the same restaurant,” Silver said. “There were two people sitting there. He sat down for a second, and I think he said something along the lines that ‘Luke Walton is not the right guy to coach LeBron.’
“My reaction was to shrug my shoulders and maybe say, ‘Well, who do you think is the right guy to coach?’ And he mentioned a name and that was that. I think as commissioner, I don’t want to shut people off who have a point of view.”
Silver said interactions like that are fairly common.
“I think he just wanted to say it out loud,” Silver said. “I don’t think he had any expectation that I would repeat that to anyone.”