Lakers vice president of player personnel Jim Buss appeared on 710 ESPN Radio's Mason and Ireland Show on Thursday, expressing disappointment with his team's season (link via Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles.com). While conceding that he's never happy if the club fall short of a championship, Buss said he was "very disappointed" with the Lakers' season, and thought they "were a better team than this." Jerry Buss' son weighed in on a number of other topics as well, including the head coach, the draft, and star center Andrew Bynum. Here are a few of Buss' comments:
On the players adjusting to a new coach and new system in a lockout-shortened season:
"There’s a lot of things you can look at and build for the future and say they haven’t had the time to gel like other teams. You watch San Antonio, they can play with their eyes closed because they know exactly where everybody is and what they’re doing and what their quirks are. You see a team that sticks together like that and we didn’t have that."
On coach Mike Brown's performance:
"I think he did a fantastic job…. I want to sit down for a couple hours and go through (if) his influence showed up on the floor, which I think it did. I think it was just unfortunate we lost that series, otherwise we’d still be in it and we’d all think that everything is fantastic."
On the possibility of trading into the first round of the draft:
"Me personally I haven’t seen anything that I would go after to move up in the draft. … I haven’t seen anything except for the No. 1 pick, and of course [the Hornets are] not going to give that up."
On Bynum's development:
"I think it’s pretty obvious how I feel about Andrew Bynum. He’s an incredible All-Star center and you can build the future around him…. I keep referring to Phil [Jackson]. Phil said, 'Let the kid grow up.' He’s still young at heart. I don’t know what else to say about him."
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dump bynum or see the same thing next year
Hmmm… All-NBA 2nd team??? I would sign up for that in a heartbeat.