Hooking into the echo chamber of opinion, we’ve got to talk about a different kind of leadership: the unglamorous, often unglorified discipline of getting a team to buy into a vision that isn’t entirely their own. In sports, as in politics or business, the test of a leader isn’t just the record; it’s the degree to which players, coaches, and staff adopt a shared purpose even when it asks them to stretch beyond their comfort zones. Personally, I think the Lakers’ current surge is less about one bright star and more about a coordinated act of persuasion that starts at the top and ripples outward. What makes this particularly fascinating is how it reframes accountability: leadership is as much about creating conditions where people want to do the work as it is about delivering a plan on paper. In my opinion, that distinction is what separates a good season from a historical one.
