Buss Has New Deck to Shuffle

Jerry Buss is eager to introduce the new-look Lakers to Los Angeles and the world. New coach. New players. A whole new ballgame.

“I think everybody in the organization was ready for that,” the Lakers’ owner said by phone from their training camp in Honolulu.

“You have to have a fresh approach. It’s difficult to have the same success year after year with the same personnel.”

Still, it must be kind of a shock to the system, Pat Riley being gone.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Buss said. “It’s kind of like when you’re playing cards. You lose two or three times in a row, it’s time to shuffle. Shuffle or ask for a new deck.”

Dr. Buss is a tenured professor with the Lakers now, a guy who has been with them longer than just about everybody. Magic Johnson was drafted a couple of months before Buss bought the team. Jerry West, who has been a Laker forever, wasn’t officially anointed as general manager until three years into the Buss regime.

The team will be returning from Hawaii in time for a charity game Tuesday night at the Forum against the Maccabi team from Tel Aviv, whereupon Laker fans can get their first look at the new coach, Mike Dunleavy, and the new players, who include Terry Teagle, Sam Perkins and rookie Elden Campbell.

The night before, Buss will be saluted for his contributions to the sport and to “universal cultural unity” at a testimonial dinner at MGM Filmland, thrown for him by businessman Meshulam Riklis and two nonprofit organizations, the American Committee for Tel Aviv Foundation and the U.S. Committee Sports for Israel.

Unseen by the public as a rule, Buss has been actively involved in aiding such organizations as City of Hope, the NAACP, United Indian Development, Big Brothers, the United Negro College Fund and others. At Tuesday’s game, 3,000 children will be admitted free thanks to Buss, the Maccabi committee and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program, and $1 of every ticket sold will go toward “Operation Exodus,” which will help finance the resettlement of Soviet immigrants in Israel.

Buss has been a do-gooder, in the best sense of the word. But the “Operation Exodus” that most interests the public is the one that left the Lakers without Riley, Michael Cooper, Orlando Woolridge, Mark McNamara and more.

It’s a new L.A. day.

“A chapter’s closed,” Buss said.

With any outfit that has enjoyed as much success as the Lakers have--and how many have?--making major changes could turn out to be both dramatic and traumatic. The owner, though, embraces the changes, looks forward to them instead of looking backward.

“I was pretty depressed after the playoffs, there’s no sense denying that,” Buss said. “To tell you the truth, during the whole year, I honestly felt that we weren’t as good a team as in previous years.

“But there we were at the end, sitting there with 63 victories. So, there wasn’t much I could do or say about it, even though I always had this uncomfortable feeling.

“Well, come the playoffs, after the first game or two, I was already coming to the conclusion that it was just not going to be our year. It got so I was in a hurry to get it over with so we could get started on next season.”

A man like Buss who hopes to someday add a football or baseball team to his collection is certainly cognizant of how difficult it is to maintain a standard of excellence. It hasn’t escaped his attention what happened in the 1980s to the Dallas Cowboys or the New York Yankees. He can’t stand the thought of his Lakers getting stale.

Therefore, he is itching to see what happens with Vlade Divac starting at center, with Teagle shooting from long range, with Perkins working nearer the hoop. He doesn’t know for sure how Campbell will pan out, but says of the rookie: “I think you’re going to be stunned when you see this guy jump. He’s unbelievable. He just floats. I think Elden Campbell could become a major shot blocker in this league, a major one.”

And the most radical change, naturally, will be on the sideline. The blue-jeaned owner has great expectations for the guy in the suit.

“Mike Dunleavy is obviously in a honeymoon period,” Buss said. “People are going to like him, but it’ll be an adjustment. He’s a man of few words. He doesn’t pontificate a great deal. He’s simple and direct. It’s a different approach than what we’ve had.

“It’s my somewhat biased opinion that Mike Dunleavy is going to turn out to be a very good NBA coach.”

And the Lakers will continue to be a very good NBA team?

“I guess that’s what we are about to find out,” their owner said.