Game 59: Ronnie Lester - Sauteed Scallops

12 minutes into the University of Iowa’s semi-final match-up against the Louisville Cardinals in the 1980 Final Four, point guard Ronnie Lester had 10 of his team’s 12 points. This was nothing out of the ordinary, as he had been the Hawkeye’s leader ever since coach Lute Olsen recruited him out of Chicago’s southside projects. But 12 minutes into that game, Lester’s knee buckled and forced him out of the game, his final as a college player. It was the same knee he injured earlier in the season. It would be the same knee that would end his NBA career prematurely and lead him to a 24 year career in the Los Angeles Lakers’ front office.

Despite being one of the nation’s top players -- his Big 10 rival Magic Johnson called him his toughest intra-conference opponent -- Lester dropped to 10th overall in the 1980 NBA Draft after teams rightfully worried about his health. He was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers, who immediately shopped him to his hometown Bulls. There, Lester lasted only four seasons due to his nagging knee injury. He was waived and picked up by the Lakers, where he served as Magic Johnson’s back-up for two seasons, though he only played a total of 59 games before getting waived again. 

In 1987, the Lakers hired Lester, who won a ring with the team as part of the 1985 team, to work as a scout. Working with scouts like Gene Tormohlen and working under general manager Jerry West, Lester became an invaluable part of one of the league’s best scouting and player development offices. From 1987 through 2011, Lester was a part of seven championship teams, eventually rising from scout to assistant general manager under Mitch Kupchuk. Then came the NBA lockout.

In 2011, the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement with the players was set to expire. Correctly sensing that the NBA’s new TV deal would dwarf the existing contract, the owners sought to reduce the players’ share of basketball-related income from 57% to 47%. When the players’ union countered with 53%, the owners locked out the players, cancelling games until late December. After months of negotiations, the two sides finally reached an agreement on many of the issues, with the players receiving 51.2% of basketball-related income for that season and between 49-51% in seasons to come. Just as was expected, a few years later, the NBA signed a new TV deal for the nine seasons between 2016 and 2024 valued at $24 billion, almost three times as much as the previous contract.

While the lockout was used as a weapon by the owners to cudgel their players into submission, the people most affected by it were the team and stadium employees who couldn’t take their talents to China and Eastern Europe. From July 1st to December 1st, NBA teams, as a business, closed their doors. And they weren’t only going after the multimillion dollar players whose labor netted them their billion dollar profits, but the staff who ensured the right players were found by the team in the first place. One of Lester’s biggest finds was high school student Andrew Bynum. Bynum never turned into the All-Star player of Lakers fans’ dreams, but he played a key role in multiple NBA Finals runs and the Dwight Howard trade.

Front office finds like that didn’t matter to the Buss family. In the summer of 2011, Lester packed up his things and moved on from the Lakers for good. It wasn’t just him, but nearly the entire scouting staff under his and GM Mitch Kupchuk’s watch was let go, without any word on if they’d be rehired after the work stoppage. The team didn’t know when the lockout ended, but they figured it was a waste to pay a bunch of people to do nothing when they could hire the ones they really wanted back when the lockout ended. After sitting out for a season and a half, Lester returned to the NBA for two seasons with the Phoenix Suns, albeit in the demoted position of scout. Lester hasn’t worked in the league since 2015, even though his name still occasionally comes up when GM spots open. But if there’s one place he won’t return to, it’s the Lakers. Not after he trashed the Buss family, especially Jerry and Jim, for their handling of the 2011 firings:

“You think of the Lakers and you think they are a great organization. But if you work inside the organization, it’s only a perception of being a great organization. It’s probably not a great organization, because great organizations don’t treat their personnel like they’ve done.”

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Sauteed Scallops

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

½ pound scallops

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped

Fresh lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

Saute garlic in olive oil until golden. Add scallops and parsley and saute over medium-high heat, until scallops are done (about 5 minutes). Remove from heat. Season to taste. Serve with lemon juice.

This isn’t much of a meal, especially if you find yourself at Albertsons and all they have are small scallops instead of the big juicy ones. So I whipped up a pan of Rigatoni, improvised an Alfredo sauce in the style of Linda Rambis’, and made some Brussels sprouts so that our meal wasn’t nothing but white and off-white food.

The scallops weren’t bad, but nothing to write home about. Barely even anything to write to a Lakers-themed cooking blog about either. Maybe it’s because the scallops were bite sized, but I… don’t think I like scallops anymore? Great texture, okay taste. Drench those little weird sea creatures in some kind of sauce or get them out of my face.