The Los Angeles Lakers have been officially eliminated from play-off contention. This season is an embarrassment for owner Jeanie Buss. It has been an embarrassment for president of basketball operations Magic Johnson and general manager Rob Pelinka. And of course, it has been an embarrassment for the supposed savior of the franchise LeBron James. Videos like the one shown above don’t help. No one in the Lakers organization expected this season to unfold as it did.
This past week, USA Today writers Jeff Zillgitt and Martin Rogers reviewed key moments from the Lakers season. As I read their article, I gleaned 22 Lessons Creating An Unhealthy Culture From LeBron James And The Los Angeles Lakers Lost Season.
Whether you lead a sports franchise, church, business, or non-profit, these lessons are applicable to any leader in any profession.
- An Unhealthy Culture Is First And Foremost Led By Unhealthy Leaders – This was LeBron’s poorest season as a leader for the following reasons – sulking on the court, lack of effort, being in individual more than a member of the team, disrespect for his head coach, and casting continual blame rather than taking responsibility for the team’s success. So goes the leader, so goes the team.
- An Unhealthy Culture Is A Losing Culture – The Lakers have not made the playoffs in six seasons.
- An Unhealthy Culture Can Turn Into A Healthy Culture – The season appeared to be on a successful path as the Lakers were in fourth place on Christmas Day with a 20-14 start.
- An Unhealthy Culture Has No Margin For Error – Unfortunately, James was injured on Christmas Day and missed the following 17 games. During his absence the Lakers went 6-11 and never recovered.
- An Unhealthy Culture Eats Talent For Breakfast – James made 13 consecutive postseason appearances and eight straight NBA Finals before joining the Lakers.
- Talented People Do Not Wish To Be Part Of An Unhealthy Culture – Paul George was expected to sign with his hometown Lakers in the off-season. To the surprise of many, he re-signed with the Oklahoma City Thunder rather than join James. It will be interesting if any of the highly-prized free agents of 2019 sign with the team.
- An Unhealthy Culture Has Teammates Who Do Not Work Well Together – Throughout his career, James was surrounded by outstanding perimeter shooters. The Lakers added a number of cast-off free agents to 1-year deals. Unfortunately, none had outside shooting as their primary skill set.
- An Unhealthy Culture Is Full Of Unhealthy Conflict – In the season’s second game, Rajon Rondo got into a fistfight with the Houston Rockets’ Chris Paul.
- Young Talent Cannot Grow And Properly Develop An Unhealthy Culture – While the Lakers were thought to have several talented young players (Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart), none were wholeheartedly embraced by James.
- People Are Not Valued In An Unhealthy Culture People – Professional sports is a production environment. If you cannot produce, the team will get someone who can. However, this approach went to a completely unhealthy level with James and the team’s unsuccessful desire to trade for the services of Anthony Davis. Their desire to acquire Davis was so great the entire team was put on the trading block.
- An Unhealthy Culture Has Low Morale – After the Davis trade fell through, the young players felt under-valued and unappreciated.
- Employees Have No Confidence When Working In An Unhealthy Culture – The feelings of being under-valued and unappreciated festered and grew into a team with no confidence.
- An Unhealthy Culture Is A Toxic Culture – Superstar forward and the most desired free agent of this off-season Kevin Durant called the atmosphere surrounding James as “toxic”.
- An Unhealthy Culture Is An Unfocused Culture – James and the team must determine his level of capacity and quality of time management. However, James comes across as being overly-concerned with television projects, movies, wine, politics, and other outside interests. The number of plates he has spinning will surely be a topic of off-season conversation.
- An Unhealthy Culture Is Full Of Bold Promises With No Results – After the All-Star break, James claimed he was going into playoff mode. He stated this was earlier in the season than he would normally do so but the team’s poor record demanded he do so. The result of James’ bold claim – the Lakers lost seven of the next eight games.
- An Unhealthy Culture Is Full Of Blame – James is famous for his sub-tweets and veiled criticisms of teammates and coaches. While the poor season could be blamed on injuries (no one’s fault), a poorly constructed roster (Johnson, Pelinka, and James’ fault), or poor leadership from LeBron himself, head coach Luke Walton will likely be the fall guy.
- An Unhealthy Culture Has Poor Communications – As shown in the video above, the effort and body language of James and Rondo was often embarrassing this year.
- Teams With An Unhealthy Culture Lose To Less-Talented Teams – During the last couple of weeks, the Lakers lost games to the Phoenix Suns and Memphis Grizzlies.
- An Unhealthy Culture Has Leaders Who Are Not Unified – It has been reported there has been a power struggle in the Lakers front office. James even said, “I would love for the team to be in the postseason… But right now, it’s not the hand I was dealt, so you play the hand that you were dealt until the dealer shuffles the cards and you’re dealt another hand and can do that.”
- An Unhealthy Culture Must Make Drastic Changes – ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy made the shocking but accurate suggestion everything must be considered up-to-and-including trading James.
- An Unhealthy Culture Is One Where The Leaders Lose Trust By Making Excuses – Jeanie Buss described all of this as “fake news”.
- An Unhealthy Culture Is Fixed By Getting The Right Leaders – As bad as this season for the Lakers has been, it could be solved with a healthy LeBron, healthy Ball and Ingram, two major free agent signings, and one of the top two picks in June’s NBA Draft. Once again, it will be interesting to see if any quality free agents wish to play with James.
Do you think this version of the Lakers can build a healthy, winning culture?
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