NBA Trade Rumors: Jim Buss' Delusion Dooms Any Hope for Dwight Howard in LA

The LA Lakers need a great deal of help if they are going to win a title this year. The one man that doesn't believe so is the one running the show. 

Jerry Buss has been taking greater steps back as his son Jim Buss runs the operations of the proud Los Angeles Lakers. If you have to ask if that has had any effect on the product, you haven't been paying much attention. 

The Lakers have gutted a squad that was already sent packing the previous summer. This is a franchise that tries to get better every single season, tax rates be damned. Instead, they have seen Shannon Brown and Lamar Odom leave with no other stars coming back in return. 

For Lakers fans hoping that this will change, forget about it. Dwight Howard is a pipe dream, because Jim Buss loves Andrew Bynum, and he also happens to be quite delusional. 

The Sporting News reports Jim Buss is pretty happy with the hand he currently holds and is standing still. He is quoted as such: 

"

I'm not as worried about this team making a run for the championship as maybe everybody else is. I know people are shook up and especially after Lamar left, but give it time...

You'd have to be kind of silly to give up two All-Stars like that for Howard. Zero truth to it. We have never been asked for Andrew and Pau and we've never offered them. I think they know we'd either say no or they would sound crazy for asking.

"

It has looked more like the Lakers were going to give this team a shot at proving itself all the way up till the end of the season. Such ventures will be fruitless and humiliating. 

Kobe Bryant is hurt, and Andrew Bynum is out for a couple more games. It is more likely the Lakers have a hole to manage after this week rather than an couple of wins to comfort them. 

Buss has a sordid way of looking at things. The Lakers are much worse than they were last year. And by my calculation, that makes them a guarantee to not win a title. So the Dwight Howard trade hopes can die with any dreams of championship glory. It certainly is a new era in Lakers Land. 

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