Buss’s Move Hiring Magic Johnson didn’t work out so well for Jeanie Buss, but ceding control to Rob Pelinka would end even worse. Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images Marc Stein The city of Los Angeles has never belonged to the Clippers. You feel reasonably safe saying that it never will. You can also credibly say that the gap has never looked smaller. The Clippers on Monday night completed the greatest playoff comeback in N.B.A. history when they overturned a 31-point deficit in the second half to stun the two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors. Heading into a free-agent summer in which the Clippers are widely expected to beat the storied Lakers to a superstar’s signature, L.A.’s long-mocked “other” team has a roster full of never-quit scrappers who you can already crown this season’s undisputed Play Hard champions. The Lakers, meanwhile, are a week removed from the most disappointing season in franchise history — with little evidence to suggest that the team’s primary owner, Jeanie Buss, is prepared to take the necessary steps to steer them back to a winning course. It has not quite reached the point that the inhabitants of Lakerland are clamoring for the return of the beleaguered Jim Buss. The Lakers, after all, did manage to sign LeBron James within 18 months of Jeanie Buss pushing out her brother Jim as the team’s lead basketball-decision maker and replacing him with Magic Johnson. But Magic’s abrupt resignation one week ago left Buss with a mess — and a clear task. After an unprecedented six straight seasons of losing, as James nears his 35th birthday in December, there is a justified clamor to break from the outdated Lakers tradition of restricting their outreach to job candidates with well-established Lakers ties. Perhaps that looms somewhere in yet-to-be-announced future plans, but the signals so far point to Buss allowing Magic’s top aide, Rob Pelinka, to assume greater responsibility and run the team’s basketball operations. Which would be the worst mistake of her tenure. Pelinka is already running the Lakers’ search for a new coach. The opening was created when Luke Walton willingly surrendered the final two years of his contract after months of withering scrutiny and pressure, largely instigated by Johnson’s well-chronicled criticism in November, once presented with a better opportunity and more tangible support from the woebegone Sacramento Kings. In numerous rival organizations, there is both shock and relief that the Lakers haven’t responded to events of the past week by chasing the likes of Golden State’s Bob Myers, San Antonio’s R.C. Buford and Oklahoma City’s Sam Presti before they go looking for a new coach. That is the blueprint Golden State followed to build a championship organization. The highly rated Myers and Rick Welts were hired to oversee basketball and business matters — with the legendary Jerry West brought in as a consultant. All of that happened before Steve Kerr became Golden State’s coach. Steve Ballmer, the Clippers’ deep-pocketed owner, invoked similar thinking in his bid to build a brain trust to try to compete with the league’s most feared franchise. Ballmer hired West away from the Warriors and imported Michael Winger, the well-regarded salary cap specialist, to flank Lawrence Frank in a revamped front office after Coach Doc Rivers was stripped of personnel power. The 76ers tried to stage their own such coup last summer after the Bryan Colangelo Twitter scandal. As The Times reported last July, Philadelphia made an ambitious attempt at trying to hire Daryl Morey away from Houston — and I’m told Philly also commissioned a clandestine run at prying Myers away from the Warriors that was likewise rebuffed. Yet another example: Just last week, amid the latest outbreak of Lakers chaos, New Orleans quietly gave itself a major credibility boost by convincing David Griffin, arguably the most accomplished executive without a job, to take on the challenge of rebuilding the Pelicans in the wake of Anthony Davis’s trade demand in January. The Lakers, like Philadelphia, could certainly be foiled if they pursued a superstar general manager. But why not try? The easiest marquee free agents to sign are general managers and coaches — those whose salaries need not fit under the cap. Industry estimates suggest Morey’s recent contract extension from the Rockets pays him in the $8 million range annually. Johnson was earning an estimated $10 million as the Lakers’ team president. Given the TV riches that the Lakers bring in, Buss could presumably double those figures in a pitch to the game’s elite executives. Buss’s defenders may try to point out that the Lakers did follow an element of the Golden State model by hiring Pelinka, given his prior run as a successful player agent like Myers was. But Myers has always been a popular figure in league circles who also spent a full season observing Golden State’s operation before he was elevated to general manager. Maintaining strong relationships within his own organization and throughout the league is one of Myers’s strengths. Pelinka, to be blunt, is not Myers. He is Kobe Bryant’s former agent but also a polarizing figure whose time with the Lakers has spawned numerous recent reports about trust issues — not only in his dealings with other teams and former rivals in the agent world but also former Lakers players (Larry Nance Jr. and Andrew Bogut) who were jettisoned after broken promises. The Lakers would argue that Pelinka has received an unfair share of criticism for his work. Yet a succession of questionable choices in roster construction, while they belong to Johnson as much as Pelinka, have only lowered Pelinka’s approval rating further. Ditto for Jeanie Buss’s since she appears to be Pelinka’s most ardent supporter. The Lakers responded to Johnson’s sudden exit by vowing to “work in a measured and methodical fashion to make the right moves for the future.” What that means so far is interviews for their coaching vacancy in the coming days with Monty Williams of the 76ers; Tyronn Lue, the former Cleveland Cavaliers coach; and the Miami Heat assistant Juwan Howard — with a buzz circulating in coaching circles that Williams has a stronger-than-expected shot at the job because some in the Lakers’ organization may fear hiring Lue would be giving LeBron too much control. Buss couldn’t have honored her father’s wishes any better than by giving Magic first crack to lead the Lakers back to glory. History won’t be kind to Johnson’s tenure as team president, to go with a failed 16-game stint as coach of the Lakers at the end of the 1993-94 season, but he will ultimately be forgiven for those stumbles because he’s Magic Johnson — maybe the greatest winner this franchise has ever employed and certainly its most charismatic. Buss, by contrast, won’t receive anything close to the same luxury if she persists with the status quo and the Lakers continue to lag behind the norms of the 21st century N.B.A. Maybe the Clippers can never fully close the gap, but they’re starting to get uncomfortably close. They’re giving the Warriors an almighty scare with what they already have — and they’re routinely billed as the favorites to sign Kawhi Leonard in free agency in July. The Lakers, as a result, need professional help as quickly as they can find it. Going beyond the borders of yesteryear is the first place they should be looking.