‘Leading with her heart’: Why a hug from Lakers boss Jeanie Buss meant so much to Montrezl Harrell由asjkfj 发表在翻译团招工部 https://bbs.hupu.com/fyt-store
Even the night of the ring ceremony, when she announced from center court that the Lakers would not hang their championship banner until fans could return to Staples Center, she was in her car heading home before tip-off.
But 38 games into the season, with the Indiana Pacers in town to face the Lakers, Buss showed up at Staples Center.
She was there for one reason: To give Montrezl Harrell a hug.
From the outset of the season, Buss was adamant on setting an example about staying home during the pandemic. But when she saw a series of troubling posts on Twitter from the reigning Sixth Man of the Year during the All-Star break, she knew she needed to make an exception.
“We’ve been so much about the protocols and the checklist and doing everything by the rulebook,” Buss said, “that you forget about the human side of people.”
So, about 15 minutes before tip-off, Buss slipped out of her lower bowl seat and headed for the court. She waited for Harrell to take a warm-up shot, and when he came over to her, she swung her arms wide and wrapped him in a hug.
It was a quiet gesture in an empty arena, one that told a story of Harrell’s grief and Buss’ empathy. It also revealed the subtle notes of grace and compassion with which Buss tries to lead.
After a year in which the simple but powerful act of greeting another person with an embrace has been mostly forbidden, this one was especially poignant. Three days earlier, Harrell had gotten Buss’ attention when he tweeted, “Think it’s time I call it quits to everything and everyone!”
“I think all of us saw Trezz posted on social media,” said Rob Pelinka, the Lakers vice president of basketball operations, “and I think we were all concerned when we read that. Jeanie reached out to me and said, ‘Hey is Trezz OK?’”
The truth was that Harrell was not OK. Not really.
He was still reeling from the death of his grandmother nearly seven months earlier.
When Mamie Harrell became ill last July, Montrezl rushed from the NBA’s Orlando bubble to his native North Carolina to be with his family. When he rejoined the Clippers two weeks later after Mamie’s passing, he dedicated his Sixth Man of the Year trophy to her.
And while that was a different season with a different team, the grief that consumed him throughout the Clippers postseason run remained.
“It’s going to be a tough year for me,” Harrell told The Athletic, “ups and downs in general, because I’m still learning how to process losing somebody that meant a lot to me.”
One of his tweets on March 9 read, “This the times I need you the most Ma! Hurts you not here for me to just call and laugh.”
Pelinka and Lakers coach Frank Vogel both contacted Harrell, who had signed with the Lakers in November. Buss and Harrell spoke on the phone, as well.
As all of that was happening behind the scenes, Buss publicly showed her support for Harrell with a tweet that said, “We love you Montrezl here is a hug until I can see you.”
But who knew when that would be?
A day later, Pelinka said, Buss called him and told him she was going to come to the next game, the Lakers first since returning from the All-Star break, to support Harrell.
“I think that’s just a great microcosm of Jeanie’s leadership,” Pelinka said. “She finds the perfect balance of leading with her mind and just her intellect and her wisdom mentally, but also leading with her heart.”
Buss was already part of the team’s testing protocols and was tested twice on Feb. 12. She then made the drive to Staples Center for the first time in months.
“What would you do if someone in your family was feeling disconnected or feeling down?” Buss said. “You’d want to give them a hug.”
When the Lakers ran onto the court, Pelinka came over to Buss and walked her down to the sideline. Then, Buss made good on her promise to a player she had only met once before.
“She didn’t have to do that,” Harrell said. “She could have paid me no mind.”
Ever since Jeanie Buss assumed control of the Lakers franchise following the 2013 death of her legendary father, Dr. Jerry Buss, she has tried to nurture a family atmosphere throughout the organization. She prides herself on not only knowing her players, but their wives and children. Their parents.
The bitter truths of the pandemic have robbed her of that kind of relationship with the players on her team. She has had almost no interaction with the current Lakers roster.
“I haven’t even met Dennis Schröder,” she said, referring to the Lakers starting point guard who was traded from Oklahoma City in November. “It’s crazy, but there’s no crossover.”
She briefly met Harrell in November at the Lakers practice facility before the start of training camp. He was decked out in Lakers shorts and a t-shirt, prompting Buss to post a photo with him on Instagram with a caption that read, “I like your style!”
（图）
The two did not interact again until Buss reached out after reading Harrell’s tweets, but that lack of familiarity did not stop her from treating him like she would someone she had known for years.
“That is definitely a page from Jerry Buss’s book about treating people as people and they’re not just employees,” Buss said. “That they’re part of the family and their well-being is important to the success of everything. It’s all interconnected.”
Buss had an unconventional rise to NBA ownership, at least among her modern-day peers, and her approach with players can be traced back to 1979, when Jerry Buss bought the Lakers from Jack Kent Cooke. At the time, Jeanie was 18, and became friends with Lakers players, including that year’s first overall pick: Earvin “Magic” Johnson.
Unlike owners who make billions in technology and then buy a team, Buss grew up alongside NBA players.
The Lakers decision to hire Phil Jackson as head coach in 1999 only enhanced Buss’s natural instinct to treat players like family.
“He had really great X’s and O’s,” Buss said, “but Phil was also a coach of people.”
The two spent 15 years in a relationship. Buss has often told a story about bickering with Jackson over his insistence on holding practice on Thanksgiving.
“One year,” she said, “I snapped on him like, ‘They just got off a 10-day road trip, why are you making them practice on Thanksgiving?’ And he goes, ‘Jeanie, I’m building a family. They’ll have plenty of time to go home and have dinner with their family. But we need to be together, too.’”
Even though the Lakers are a global brand, they remain a relatively small, family-run organization. Buss is quick to point out that the Lakers only have about 200 employees, including players.
“It’s important that we have that trust and respect and that perseverance,” she said. “When one of us is down, we’re all down and we lift each other up.”
Lakers history is intertwined with this idea of family. That’s natural with a family asset that is passed through generations. But for Buss, it extends beyond her siblings in the front office and the stars who pass through — she has said Johnson is “like a brother” to her — but also to players whose tenure with the Lakers is relatively brief.
“I’ve been in this business so long and you realize the playing career is such a small amount of a player’s life,” Buss said, “the years that you’re playing and afterwards it’s important that they have a connection to the legacy that they left and their part of Lakers history.”
That is true of even the most acrimonious of breakups. Namely, when the Lakers traded Shaquille O’Neal in 2004 to make Kobe Bryant the lone face of the franchise.
“What was important to me was that the second Shaq was traded it was about rebuilding that bridge,” Buss said, “because it’s hard and you’re dealing with feelings and emotions of when you trade a player.”
Even in the lean years in the last decade, Buss grew attached to the young players who represented the Lakers future. She celebrated the 2019 trade for Anthony Davis, but hated to see Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart leave.
Due to tampering rules, she can’t talk about former players, but she did refer to former Lakers who went on to become All-Stars elsewhere and are “making us proud.”
“If we have a reunion 30 years from now,” Buss said, “I want them to know they’re always welcome. No matter where they finished their career or where they started their career, I want them to know if they were a Laker at one time, they were a part of our history. They’re in our books and they’re always welcome.”
Said Pelinka: “Jeanie sets the tone. And if you wear the Lakers uniform, you’re always a Laker.”’
Buss worries about the toll this season has taken on her players. She spent time in the bubble during the playoffs, and didn’t understand why she felt so exhausted when she hadn’t really done anything. Then she realized just how grueling it was just to live within a set of rules and protocols.
And while teams this season are able to live at home with their families, they are always one decision away from running afoul of the league’s Covid-19 policies. They are tested twice a day. Even during the All-Star break, players were tested daily.
“That’s very intrusive to just being able to have one day off a week where they don’t have to think about basketball,” Buss said. “There are no days off in this season.”
She said that the year of isolation has taken its toll on her, as well.
“A small kind gesture really elevates my mood,” she said, “and I just appreciate those kind of connections that have really become valued.”
“I wasn’t doing it for any other reason than to have that moment with him to let him know he was important to me,” Buss said. “I think the story really should be about all the heart and energy that he’s brought to our team. He’s just been so terrific and I appreciate him so much.”
After that hug from Buss, Harrell went on to score 17 points and block three shots in a win against the Pacers. In six games since the All-Star break he is averaging 20.3 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, and his importance to the Lakers will only continue to grow as the team navigates playing without LeBron James and Anthony Davis, who are both out with injuries.
And as he does, Harrell will be carrying with him an intense grief, even if it is masked by his ferocious dunks and ferocious snarls.
“This is still my workplace,” Harrell said. “This is still my job, so I still have to come out and perform and be in the right headspace for the guys that are out there on the floor with me. Those guys are dealing with things in their own households, but they don’t bring it into the workspace and that’s the same way I carry it with myself.”
The tweets, Harrell said, were his way of expressing his pain.
“I don’t really like talking to people about what I’m going through,” he said. “So, what I say is just getting it off my chest. I’m not really looking for a handout, I’m not looking for nobody to comfort me. Whatever I say is just to get it off my chest and keep on going throughout my day. That’s how I deal with things. For her to see that and actually reach out meant a lot.”
Buss loves all Lakers players. She gets excited when she talks about Alex Caruso’s defense and the way Schröder has fit in.
LeBron, she says, “is like a superhero.”
But she feels a unique bond with Harrell.
“I lived through that time period where people were like, ‘Nobody wants to come to the Lakers, they’re a ‘poo-poo show’ that nobody wants to go to anymore,’” Buss said. “And Montrezl was like, ‘I want to be a Laker,’ and that just meant so much to me. I have a really soft spot for him in my heart and he’s exceeded my expectations of what he’s been able to do as a Laker.
“I’m just glad he’s here.”
When is a hug more than just a hug? When there is so much more wrapped up in it than the two people.
“It shows that she actually cares,” Harrell said, “and not just about basketball.”
Even the night of the ring ceremony, when she announced from center court that the Lakers would not hang their championship banner until fans could return to Staples Center, she was in her car heading home before tip-off.
But 38 games into the season, with the Indiana Pacers in town to face the Lakers, Buss showed up at Staples Center.
She was there for one reason: To give Montrezl Harrell a hug.
From the outset of the season, Buss was adamant on setting an example about staying home during the pandemic. But when she saw a series of troubling posts on Twitter from the reigning Sixth Man of the Year during the All-Star break, she knew she needed to make an exception.
“We’ve been so much about the protocols and the checklist and doing everything by the rulebook,” Buss said, “that you forget about the human side of people.”
So, about 15 minutes before tip-off, Buss slipped out of her lower bowl seat and headed for the court. She waited for Harrell to take a warm-up shot, and when he came over to her, she swung her arms wide and wrapped him in a hug.
It was a quiet gesture in an empty arena, one that told a story of Harrell’s grief and Buss’ empathy. It also revealed the subtle notes of grace and compassion with which Buss tries to lead.
After a year in which the simple but powerful act of greeting another person with an embrace has been mostly forbidden, this one was especially poignant. Three days earlier, Harrell had gotten Buss’ attention when he tweeted, “Think it’s time I call it quits to everything and everyone!”
“I think all of us saw Trezz posted on social media,” said Rob Pelinka, the Lakers vice president of basketball operations, “and I think we were all concerned when we read that. Jeanie reached out to me and said, ‘Hey is Trezz OK?’”
The truth was that Harrell was not OK. Not really.
He was still reeling from the death of his grandmother nearly seven months earlier.
When Mamie Harrell became ill last July, Montrezl rushed from the NBA’s Orlando bubble to his native North Carolina to be with his family. When he rejoined the Clippers two weeks later after Mamie’s passing, he dedicated his Sixth Man of the Year trophy to her.
And while that was a different season with a different team, the grief that consumed him throughout the Clippers postseason run remained.
“It’s going to be a tough year for me,” Harrell told The Athletic, “ups and downs in general, because I’m still learning how to process losing somebody that meant a lot to me.”
One of his tweets on March 9 read, “This the times I need you the most Ma! Hurts you not here for me to just call and laugh.”
Pelinka and Lakers coach Frank Vogel both contacted Harrell, who had signed with the Lakers in November. Buss and Harrell spoke on the phone, as well.
As all of that was happening behind the scenes, Buss publicly showed her support for Harrell with a tweet that said, “We love you Montrezl here is a hug until I can see you.”
But who knew when that would be?
A day later, Pelinka said, Buss called him and told him she was going to come to the next game, the Lakers first since returning from the All-Star break, to support Harrell.
“I think that’s just a great microcosm of Jeanie’s leadership,” Pelinka said. “She finds the perfect balance of leading with her mind and just her intellect and her wisdom mentally, but also leading with her heart.”
Buss was already part of the team’s testing protocols and was tested twice on Feb. 12. She then made the drive to Staples Center for the first time in months.
“What would you do if someone in your family was feeling disconnected or feeling down?” Buss said. “You’d want to give them a hug.”
When the Lakers ran onto the court, Pelinka came over to Buss and walked her down to the sideline. Then, Buss made good on her promise to a player she had only met once before.
“She didn’t have to do that,” Harrell said. “She could have paid me no mind.”
Ever since Jeanie Buss assumed control of the Lakers franchise following the 2013 death of her legendary father, Dr. Jerry Buss, she has tried to nurture a family atmosphere throughout the organization. She prides herself on not only knowing her players, but their wives and children. Their parents.
The bitter truths of the pandemic have robbed her of that kind of relationship with the players on her team. She has had almost no interaction with the current Lakers roster.
“I haven’t even met Dennis Schröder,” she said, referring to the Lakers starting point guard who was traded from Oklahoma City in November. “It’s crazy, but there’s no crossover.”
She briefly met Harrell in November at the Lakers practice facility before the start of training camp. He was decked out in Lakers shorts and a t-shirt, prompting Buss to post a photo with him on Instagram with a caption that read, “I like your style!”
（图）
The two did not interact again until Buss reached out after reading Harrell’s tweets, but that lack of familiarity did not stop her from treating him like she would someone she had known for years.
“That is definitely a page from Jerry Buss’s book about treating people as people and they’re not just employees,” Buss said. “That they’re part of the family and their well-being is important to the success of everything. It’s all interconnected.”
Buss had an unconventional rise to NBA ownership, at least among her modern-day peers, and her approach with players can be traced back to 1979, when Jerry Buss bought the Lakers from Jack Kent Cooke. At the time, Jeanie was 18, and became friends with Lakers players, including that year’s first overall pick: Earvin “Magic” Johnson.
Unlike owners who make billions in technology and then buy a team, Buss grew up alongside NBA players.
The Lakers decision to hire Phil Jackson as head coach in 1999 only enhanced Buss’s natural instinct to treat players like family.
“He had really great X’s and O’s,” Buss said, “but Phil was also a coach of people.”
The two spent 15 years in a relationship. Buss has often told a story about bickering with Jackson over his insistence on holding practice on Thanksgiving.
“One year,” she said, “I snapped on him like, ‘They just got off a 10-day road trip, why are you making them practice on Thanksgiving?’ And he goes, ‘Jeanie, I’m building a family. They’ll have plenty of time to go home and have dinner with their family. But we need to be together, too.’”
Even though the Lakers are a global brand, they remain a relatively small, family-run organization. Buss is quick to point out that the Lakers only have about 200 employees, including players.
“It’s important that we have that trust and respect and that perseverance,” she said. “When one of us is down, we’re all down and we lift each other up.”
Lakers history is intertwined with this idea of family. That’s natural with a family asset that is passed through generations. But for Buss, it extends beyond her siblings in the front office and the stars who pass through — she has said Johnson is “like a brother” to her — but also to players whose tenure with the Lakers is relatively brief.
“I’ve been in this business so long and you realize the playing career is such a small amount of a player’s life,” Buss said, “the years that you’re playing and afterwards it’s important that they have a connection to the legacy that they left and their part of Lakers history.”
That is true of even the most acrimonious of breakups. Namely, when the Lakers traded Shaquille O’Neal in 2004 to make Kobe Bryant the lone face of the franchise.
“What was important to me was that the second Shaq was traded it was about rebuilding that bridge,” Buss said, “because it’s hard and you’re dealing with feelings and emotions of when you trade a player.”
Even in the lean years in the last decade, Buss grew attached to the young players who represented the Lakers future. She celebrated the 2019 trade for Anthony Davis, but hated to see Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart leave.
Due to tampering rules, she can’t talk about former players, but she did refer to former Lakers who went on to become All-Stars elsewhere and are “making us proud.”
“If we have a reunion 30 years from now,” Buss said, “I want them to know they’re always welcome. No matter where they finished their career or where they started their career, I want them to know if they were a Laker at one time, they were a part of our history. They’re in our books and they’re always welcome.”
Said Pelinka: “Jeanie sets the tone. And if you wear the Lakers uniform, you’re always a Laker.”’
Buss worries about the toll this season has taken on her players. She spent time in the bubble during the playoffs, and didn’t understand why she felt so exhausted when she hadn’t really done anything. Then she realized just how grueling it was just to live within a set of rules and protocols.
And while teams this season are able to live at home with their families, they are always one decision away from running afoul of the league’s Covid-19 policies. They are tested twice a day. Even during the All-Star break, players were tested daily.
“That’s very intrusive to just being able to have one day off a week where they don’t have to think about basketball,” Buss said. “There are no days off in this season.”
She said that the year of isolation has taken its toll on her, as well.
“A small kind gesture really elevates my mood,” she said, “and I just appreciate those kind of connections that have really become valued.”
“I wasn’t doing it for any other reason than to have that moment with him to let him know he was important to me,” Buss said. “I think the story really should be about all the heart and energy that he’s brought to our team. He’s just been so terrific and I appreciate him so much.”
After that hug from Buss, Harrell went on to score 17 points and block three shots in a win against the Pacers. In six games since the All-Star break he is averaging 20.3 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, and his importance to the Lakers will only continue to grow as the team navigates playing without LeBron James and Anthony Davis, who are both out with injuries.
And as he does, Harrell will be carrying with him an intense grief, even if it is masked by his ferocious dunks and ferocious snarls.
“This is still my workplace,” Harrell said. “This is still my job, so I still have to come out and perform and be in the right headspace for the guys that are out there on the floor with me. Those guys are dealing with things in their own households, but they don’t bring it into the workspace and that’s the same way I carry it with myself.”
The tweets, Harrell said, were his way of expressing his pain.
“I don’t really like talking to people about what I’m going through,” he said. “So, what I say is just getting it off my chest. I’m not really looking for a handout, I’m not looking for nobody to comfort me. Whatever I say is just to get it off my chest and keep on going throughout my day. That’s how I deal with things. For her to see that and actually reach out meant a lot.”
Buss loves all Lakers players. She gets excited when she talks about Alex Caruso’s defense and the way Schröder has fit in.
LeBron, she says, “is like a superhero.”
But she feels a unique bond with Harrell.
“I lived through that time period where people were like, ‘Nobody wants to come to the Lakers, they’re a ‘poo-poo show’ that nobody wants to go to anymore,’” Buss said. “And Montrezl was like, ‘I want to be a Laker,’ and that just meant so much to me. I have a really soft spot for him in my heart and he’s exceeded my expectations of what he’s been able to do as a Laker.
“I’m just glad he’s here.”
When is a hug more than just a hug? When there is so much more wrapped up in it than the two people.
“It shows that she actually cares,” Harrell said, “and not just about basketball.”
推荐
评论 (2)
收藏
分享
举报
只看楼主
