Believe it or not: Suns head coach job is better than the Lakers

You might think the Suns are more dysfunctional – but you’d be wrong

I have already harped on Robert Sarver as being the greatest impediment of Phoenix Suns success, but it is not like the Lakers’ ownership and management is all  that much better.

Lest we forget: while the Suns have missed the playoffs in each of the previous nine seasons, the Lakers have now missed the playoffs six consecutive times, and the last time was with LeBron James on the roster.

Sure the Suns have had way  too many head coaches since Sarver has taken ownership (and they have had way  too many general managers as well), but the Lakers’ President of Basketball Operations Magic Johnson just quit in front of the media only two weeks ago (without telling ownership first), whilst literally crying and noting that he didn’t have the heart to fire the head coach (Luke Walton) who was ultimately fired a week after Magic couldn’t do it himself.

If that isn’t a sign of tremendous dysfunction, what is?

But there is more – a glorious amount more: LeBron James came to the STAPLES Center injured and brought with him a glass of wine; James was caught sitting apart from the rest of his teammates in a blowout loss to the Indiana Pacers; Rondo too watched the end of a blowout loss apart from his teammates (although he sat in an open court side seat that wasn’t even a part of the team bench) – and the coaching staff did nothing but glare; oh, and less than two years ago, primary owner Jeanie Buss fired her brother Jim as Vice President of Basketball Operations (she then hired Magic), and publicly stated that she “waited too long” to do it.

Wow.

Now, all this isn’t to say that the Lakers are in a worse  position organizationally and dysfunctionally than the Suns – but they aren’t that much better.

And while an outsider might still look at the Lakers as a franchise who could potentially become less dysfunctional faster than Phoenix, Lakers ownership is still the same today as they were yesterday, and they too face an offseason full of organizational changes, meaning that if nothing else, even if the Suns are not necessarily a better  organization to be a part of, it certainly does not mean that they are worse.