What did Lakers’ owner Jeanie Buss tweet about Kobe Bryant

With one message the Lakers owner broke the internet and most likely put a few of the team’s players on notice. Who they are is up for debate, but rest assured shots were fired.

How should we interpret Jeanie Buss’ tweet about Kobe Bryant?

It’s not very often that Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss posts messages on social media. Whether that’s because she’s got better things to do with her time than engage in online debates or simply because she doesn’t like to, the fact remains that she’s not someone who we hear from frequently. Taking that into consideration, her recent tweet on Sunday night was quite frankly, head turning. In a cryptic message that was posted late in the night, Buss made reference to the late and great Kobe Bryant as well as the state of the team itself.

“I miss KB,” Buss wrote on Sunday night. “He would understand and explain everything that I’m not allowed to. Honestly, he was the greatest Laker ever. He understood team over self. Meaning your rewards would come if you valued team goals over your own then everything would fall into place. All can reply.” There are a few things to unpack here: Firstly, Buss makes reference to the idea that there are things she would like to say but would likely be critiqued or even sanctioned if she did. Secondly, she suggests - reading between the lines here - that some don’t understand the concept of team. Lastly, she invites a response, which would suggest she knows she’s going to ruffle feathers.

Are there bigger problems inside the Los Angeles Lakers?

Was Buss’ tweet a digital expression of a moment in which she was missing her late friend? Was it related to the now intense rumors of a Kyrie Irving-Russell Westbrook trade or perhaps something else completely? Regardless most will be asking one of two questions or both: ‘Why would Jeanie Buss post that?’ and ‘What’s going on in Los Angeles?’ With that said, there is one thing we can take away from it all and that’s the fact that right here and now, the Lakers are in a critical moment.

This past season was nothing short of disastrous as the franchise failed to even make the playoffs. Add to that the now ‘failed Russell Westbrook experiment’ and you’ve got yourself the making of a potentially volatile situation. Indeed, there has been little to no interest in Westbrook around the league forcing the Lakers to consider the real possibility that he will be on their roster when the 2022-23 season gets underway. That is until things went south in Brooklyn. With Kyrie Irving’s name now in the mix, the Lakers may have a lifeline after it was reported that they were in talks with the Nets about a potential trade. It must be said that Irving is a complicated player in that he can be unpredictable off the court. On the other hand, he’s a better player than Westbrook and his past relationship with LeBron James doesn’t hurt either. This is all to say that if they can in fact bring Irving to LA, it will likely be a good thing for the franchise. To be clear, there is no official word on a deal, but it does fit with things that Buss said before.

What did Jeanie Buss say earlier this year?

As mentioned above, a move for Irving is a mixed bag. On the one side he’s as talented as they come, but on the other his unpredictable behavior off the court has resulted in him often being unavailable for games over the last few years. Is he the right fit for a franchise in need of a way back to the top and an owner who’s growing tired of waiting. Consider what Buss said at the end of this past season, when she left no doubt as to how she was feeling.

“I’m growing impatient just because we had the fourth-highest payroll in the league,” Buss said at the time. “When you spend that kind of money on the luxury tax, you expect to go deep into the playoffs. So, yeah, it was gut-wrenching for me to go out on a limb like that and not get the results that we were looking for. I’m not happy, I’m not satisfied.” Expect more in this story.