If you want to get technical with things – and there are a whole lot of Los Angeles Lakers fans that would love to get harshly pedantic with this sort of “thing” – Lakers president of basketball operations Jim Buss is set to be relieved of his duties this spring of his team fails to make the Western Conference finals.

Or, the spring of 2018. Or, not at all. Things, as you’d expect, are still somewhat fluid.

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The Lakers part-owner and lead personnel chief, back in April of 2014, laid it all “on the line,” in his words, telling the press that he would “step down, because that means I have failed” if the team wasn’t in contention for a Western or NBA crown within “three or four years.” The 2016-17 season will represent the third of those “three or four years,” and the team is coming off of a 17-win season that led to the drafting of a 19-year old prodigy as reward. A rather dramatic turnaround is needed, assuming Buss stays true to his word, if his job is to be saved.

Speaking to the media at the outset of Laker camp, general manager Mitch Kupchak expectedly shooed away any sort of questions regarding the potential impermanence of his, y’know, boss.

From the Los Angeles Times:

From the Orange County Register:

Because, yeah. It’s his boss.

The Lakers are intriguing, per usual, with a young core that will finally get a chance to breathe and develop without Kobe Bryant and Byron Scott getting in the way of things. New head coach Luke Walton might be just 36, but he’s hardly a rookie. Actual rookie Brandon Ingram will join second-year player D’Angelo Russell and just-about second-year player Julius Randle to form a happenin’ group of talents. There will be cap space next summer and, lottery luck willing, potentially another high draft pick.

The high draft pick comes when the group of teenagers and early-20 somethings acts as expected, and wins far, far fewer than half its games in 2016-17. And, if the Lakers keep their pick this year (if the lottery places it within the top three), the Philadelphia 76ers will get the team’s 2018 top pick.

That’s not exactly brushing up on championship contention, or even Western championship contention. And it’s hard to imagine just what sort of moves Buss and Kupchak – provided Buss doesn’t step down following 2016-17 – could make to encourage a massive jump in the standings. The addition of Blake Griffin as a free agent and the blossoming of homegrown talent in a post-Kobe world just won’t be enough to move from 17 to 57 wins in 24 months’ time.

We’re nearly 21 months removed from Lakers president of business operations Jeanie Buss telling the media that she’ll hold her brother’s feet to the fire regarding his self-imposed time frame; but all manner of caveats on Jim’s end could be used to weasel out of staying true to that “three or four years”-pitch. The excuse list will be long, it will likely be on record, and it will be worth discussing at length when it comes time for the Buss family (and Kupchak, sadly dragged through all of this) to explain why.

Until then, let’s remember that after years of paying more attention to the business aspect of things as the Kobe Show raged on, the Lakers are on the right track.

And let’s also remember that the worst person to ask about the job security of Jim Buss is the man who reports directly to him. Mitch Kupchak isn’t going to give you a whole heck of a lot when it comes to discussing the future of his boss.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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