Jim Buss calls criticism of Lakers' analytics 'unfair,' states that he will not sell team

Popular sentiment among NBA fans is that the Los Angeles Lakers are behind the times when it comes to the use of analytics in order to improve their on court product. The Lakers ranked 29th out of 30 teams in ESPN's analytics rankings, ahead of only the New York Knicks. Lakers executive vice president of basketball operations and part-owner Jim Buss unsurprisingly takes issue with that characterization ,and told Eric Pincus of the L.A. Times as much in the third part of their must-read and wide ranging interview.

"It's an unfair assessment... We don't announce what we do," said Buss, who makes use of his own closely guarded analytics upon which he claims to "make [almost] all my decisions." Further, Buss notes, "If we are ahead of the game why would we tell people what we're doing, so that they can catch up?"

Buss' sister, Lakers president and part-owner Jeanie Buss, has reiterated numerous times that Jim will be held to his self-imposed deadline to get the team back into contention over the next two seasons. Even if Buss does step down, however, investors should not come looking to buy the Lakers from the Buss family:

Buss, who shares the majority ownership of the Lakers with his five siblings, said the Lakers' franchise is not on the market.

"There is no point to sell, because it's a family business," he said. "We have Jesse [Buss] who runs the scouting and does an incredible job. Joey [Buss], who is the business side and runs the D-Fenders and does a great job. They're the future of the Lakers.

"We're not going to sell, that's all there is to it."

Buss also talks about why Lakers head coach Byron Scott is like a brother to him, what he blames for the team's lack of success over the past two seasons, and what he thinks of Roy Hibbert in this most recent interview. No matter what they think of Buss, every Lakers fan should go read the entire thing.