As the Los Angles Lakers acquired Dwight Howard from the Orlando Magic, something besides a monumental shift in NBA power happened.
There was a gigantic shift in NBA management and ownership power.
Jim Buss, son of the greatest owner in all of professional basketball Dr. Jerry Buss, previously had a reputation as incapable of filling his father’s quite sizeable shoes. Nonetheless, Dr. Buss has ceded control of the Lakers to his children in recent years, most notably to Jim Buss.
After standing pat last summer, this time Lakers’ brass Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak made ‘magic’ happen, using a trade exception, draft picks, rarely used bench players, a veteran’s minimum and Andrew Bynum to land Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, and Antawn Jamison.
As Jim Buss steps successfully into the void left by his father, his path follows some patterns Malcolm Gladwell, who writes occasionally for Bill Simmons’ Grantland, identifies in his New York Times best seller “Outliers.”
Accumulative Advantage
Jim Buss’ many opportunities and exposure to the game of basketball have helped prepare him to be successful in the business of the NBA. “I try to learn as much as I possibly can from people who have worked the game very, very hard. I’m surrounded by incredible people, as far as draining knowledge from them: Phil Jackson, Jerry West, Mitch Kupchak, Ronnie Lester, Frank Hamblen, Kurt Rambis, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and many others. If you take a step back, I’ve got an incredible teaching ground,” said Buss. According to Gladwell, great mentors can make all the difference. And, Buss has had an elite group of them, including, of course, his father.
10,000 Hours
Dr. Jerry Buss understood Gladwell’s concepts long before he had published them. About his son, Buss said “you have to spend time doing this—that’s true of any corporation. And he has.” To prepare him for his position, Jim Buss was Assistant to the General Manager (Kupchak) from 1998 to 2004. Later, Buss was Vice President of Player Personnel. Gladwell says it takes about 10 years in a given field to reach the 10,000-hour mark, and Buss has put the time in.
While many agree Jim Buss’ success makes sense, the same could not be said of his father, Dr. Jerry Buss. As a college teacher myself, I marvel at how Buss went from being a university professor to the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Buss’ success defies convention, but it also both conforms to and defies Gladwell’s idea of success. Poet James Broughton once wrote, “The only limits are, as always, those of vision.” But, Buss was a visionary without limits.
A child of divorce and gut-wrenching poverty, Buss saw exactly how hard his mother Jessie had to work as a dishwasher. Sometimes, they had to use books in place of firewood on desolately cold Wyoming winter nights. “I think the fear of poverty had a lot to do with my drive,” Buss said. These experiences gave him some of his internal drive, a common trend among outliers.
Buss’ path, though, was very unconventional. After finishing his Ph.D. in Chemistry at USC, Buss used his creativity and imagination that he had honed solving difficult problems, to solve another kind of problem: how to make enough money to teach.
Buss had incredible foresight and intuition. With money he saved working in aerospace, Buss wisely invested $1,000 in some undervalued California real estate in the 1960’s. His work ethic and business savvy led to the huge success of Mariani-Buss Associates. By 1979, Buss had more than enough to buy the package of the Lakers, L.A. Kings, the Forum, and a 13,000-acre ranch, which he purchased from Jack Kent Cooke for just shy of $70 million.
Using his knowledge of business, chemical reactions and combinations, Buss created championships on the basketball court. The Lakers have won 10 NBA Titles since Buss took over the organization, pulling the Lakers to within one championship of tying the mighty Boston Celtics for 17 NBA Championships all-time.
Dr. Jerry Buss had neither Gladwell’s 10,000-hours in the field, nor an accumulative advantage, the idea that the ‘rich get richer.’ Instead, Buss became successful through an improbable combination of hard-work, motivation, intuition, timing, location, and management skills.
After signing Howard, Jim Buss looks like he is fully ready to assume his father’s role and use his considerable outlier ‘advantages’ to continue the Buss legacy.
Rob S. De France is a College and University Instructor of English Composition living in Los Angeles. He has a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Rhetoric and Composition. De France has played, coached, and officiated competitive high school basketball in California for many years. Recently, De France, his wife, and another colleague started an internationally read magazine at Shwibly.com.
