For some teams, losing is not an option. Further, from preps, to college, to the pros, some teams won't even tolerate mediocrity -- at least for very long. No doubt, there's untold thousands of prep programs in various sports that have been good for so long, that nobody remembers them ever being bad.
In college, men's Kentucky basketball comes to mind, as does Ohio State football. They may not win it all every year, but you'll never see them suffer through years long slumps of being noncompetitive. That's because if whoever's in charge isn't getting it done -- then he's gone. Not good enough.
In the pros, the New York Yankees certainly fit the mold. The late George Steinbrenner simply wouldn't tolerate a loser for very long. Likely neither would the Detroit Red Wings, nor the Green Bay Packers or the New England Patriots. Not winning a championship is OK, because nobody does that every year, but missing the playoffs a couple years in a row will get somebody's head on the block -- in a hurry. Proud franchises with a winning tradition simply won't tolerate less than "very good", and they'll do whatever it takes to "restore the roar". Most times, the head coach or manager is the first one to go.
Conversely, there are other teams that have been losers for so long, that not much is expected of them. The Chicago Cubs would be the epitome, and until recently, perhaps the LA Clippers and Detroit Lions fell into the same category.
It all starts and ends with ownership, of course. If an owner wants a winner bad enough, he can have one. Yes, it might take a couple years to bring it all together, and he has to have very smart people making personnel decisions and juggling the numbers, but the winners always find a way to get it done. The losers don't. When it comes to hiring and firing managers or head coaches, many times the team GM and/or President will make the announcement, but let's not kid ourselves. The owner has to sign off on all such decisions.
Bottom line? If the billionaire cares and pays attention, his team will be good. If he doesn't, they won't.
Jerry Buss, the owner of the LA Lakers, cares. When's the last time you heard of the LA Lakers being lousy? You haven't. They were good way before Phil Jackson, the Zen Master himself, arrived on the scene to win a few championships. Donald Sterling, the owner of the LA Clippers, that plays in the same Staples Center as the Lakers, evidently didn't care. Same building and same salary cap, but one was a perennial winner and the other a perennial loser. Owners can make a big difference -- if they want to.
And now Lakers' head coach Mike Brown just got canned. Brown spent a lot of years as the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers and had Lebron James, arguably the most talented all-around player to play the game -- ever -- and did OK. Yet it's highly unlikely that no matter how terrific any one player is -- the team will win a championship without a fairly good supporting cast. Players like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird fell into that category, and they'd likely be the first to admit it.
But the LA Lakers weren't anywhere near the one man show Brown had with the Cavaliers. Quite the opposite. Besides Kobe Bryant, they had pulled off a deal for Pao Gasol, a very talented big man, and recently added Superman himself, in the person of Dwight Howard. Throw in Metta World Peace, the artist formerly known as Ron Artest. People think MWP is getting old. He's 32, and Kobe's 34. They almost had superstar guard Chris Paul last year, until Commish David Stern nixed the trade for his own reasons. To boot, though they don't get much attention, the Lakers supporting cast is very good as well. The point is, Jerry Buss is much like George Steinbrenner used to be. Their teams will find a way to get good players or the GM will probably be gone. Anything less just isn't good enough.
To be fair, it takes time for a coach and new players to gel and come together. But let's get real. Like every other team, the Lakers had scores of practices to work this out. Then they had 8 preseason games against "live" competition to make adjustments. The Lakers were 0-8 in the preseason.
Maybe that was excusable, but after being unceremoniously dumped in the playoffs last year -- when the bell rang this year and Brown's team came out of the gate 1-4 in the real games with all that talent -- well -- Jerry Buss isn't the sort of owner that will sit back and tolerate mediocrity, much less losing, for very long. He's the polar opposite of someone like Detroit Lions' owner William Clay Ford, that could put up with a guy like Matt Millen for 7-8 years running his team, while clueless about draft choices and hiring clown coaches -- while his team is swirling down the porcelain receptacle. To repeat -- owners matter.
Mike Brown is going to make $11 million of Jerry Buss's money for doing nothing. That's the cost of buying out his contract. But to Buss, winning is more important.
When the team didn't perform well under Brown -- he gone.
Maybe the next guy will do better and maybe he won't. But make no mistake, he'll be on a short leash.
Jerry Buss will settle for no less. This is a proud franchise, GM Mitch Kupchak has done a superb job of procuring immense talent, and dammit, either they win -- and pretty quick -- or the next coach be gone too.
One can only hope new Detroit Pistons' owner Tom Gores can get his head out of those equity funds long enough to pay attention to how a successful franchise owner operates. Being a self-made billionaire, Gores should certainly understand the concept of Business 101. If it's going to be an asset -- keep it. If it becomes a liability -- get rid of it.
The really smart folks aren't afraid to take a short term hit, if it enhances their chances of long term success.
So sayeth yours truly, the undisputed master of different ways to combine TV dinners and raimen noodles.
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