The Lakers are struggling again. Will their owners ever agree on what’s best for them?

Hope is a funny thing. Some people find it in the darkest corners. Other can’t see in the sunlight. Silver-tongued lyricists can draw it out of you. Battle-scabbed realists can rip it out of your hands and set it afire. It’s fickle and unpredictable.

The Lakers filled their legions with hope in November as Julius Randle got off to a strong start, D’Angelo Russell and Brandon Ingram showed glimpses of future stardom, Larry Nance Jr. and Jordan Clarkson became entrenched as serious NBA players, and Luke Walton brought the goods in turning his vets into positive forces. L.A. started 10-10, much better than the 3-17 start of last season or the 5-15 opening of 2014-15. The Lakers were in the playoff hunt, and it looked like L.A.’s brief nightmare of Clippers supremacy might be coming to a close.

Since then, the Lakers have gone 2-12 and are now closer to the worst record in the league than the West No. 8 seed. The bloom isn’t off for the Lakers, but the sweet scent of hope is much harder to detect amid the stench of defeat.

Hope is fickle and unpredictable. Victory drew it out of even the hardened skeptics in November. Even optimists struggled to keep it in their grasp in December. Now, we’re reminded that the 2013-14 Lakers started 10-10 before finishing with a 27-55 record, sixth-worst in the league.

It is through this prism that Bill Oram of The Orange County Register explores the fabled Jeanie Buss deadline for the Lakers to be back in title contention lest her brother Jim and longtime GM Mitch Kupchak get replaced. Oram’s piece is wonderfully reported and full of nuance. The upshot — through this reader’s lens, albeit — is that Jim Buss feels perceived progress is more important than actually meeting the stated conditions of the deadline, while Jeanie Buss is not really here for leniency but will always do what’s best for the franchise.

That read is no doubt colored by preconceived notions about the siblings, which is unavoidable. The Buss family has been front and center for a decade now. We can’t unlearn what we know about Jim and Jeanie. We can only re-assess them as necessary.

As such, Jim Buss’ basketball chops have been solidified as he takes a public role in Kupchak’s front office and as that front office aces the NBA draft repeatedly. (The Clarkson and Nance picks were inspired.) His move to hire Walton — an old Phil Jackson favorite, with all that connotes — seemed like an olive branch to his sister, for whatever that’s worth. (Walton to the Lakers also felt destined from the beginning of the season. Perhaps Buss had no choice but to chase Luke hard.)

But Jim’s lack of self-awareness continues to confound. When it is posited that he will not likely meet the condition that he leads the Lakers back into contention within “three or four years” of taking over basketball operations, he pushes it aside by saying that the quotes about the deadline are from “three or four years ago.” (Well, yes). He makes excuses for why the Lakers aren’t in the playoff hunt, pointing to injuries and the Kobe Bryant farewell tour, as if Buss himself didn’t sign Steve Nash and trade for Dwight Howard, and as if Buss and Kupchak didn’t work to sign Kobe to his backbreaking golden parachute. (Jerry Buss didn’t die until 2013, but Jim was the VP of basketball ops from 2005 on, and Jerry stepped back from the team circa 2012.)

The Lakers are not on track for a fourth consecutive losing season because of bad luck and unavoidable circumstances. They are still losing because they made some poor decisions at the tail end of an extraordinary run of success with a legendary/legendarily difficult player. They are still losing because hope alone is not a salve. Losing comes out of a spigot with no valve. Ask the other 29 NBA franchises, all of which have experienced years-long losing streak the Lakers find so foreign.

Let’s also be clear about what the Lakers are. Randle, Russell, and Ingram are nice. Nance and Clarkson are solid. The veteran collective is fun. But this isn’t the second coming of the 2009 Oklahoma City Thunder. Not one of the prospects has shown themselves to be a surefire All-Star, let alone a potential MVP. (Those old Thunder had three future MVP candidates, which is really crazy to consider.)

Ingram is just half a season into his career and is still 19, but he’s shooting 35 percent on eight shots per game. Kevin Durant shot 43 percent on 17 shots per game at that age. This type of comparison is unfair to Ingram, and shouldn’t reflect on his arc. (All player development arcs are unique.)

Yet this type of clear-headed analysis needs to happen if Jeanie Buss is to fairly assess her brother’s performance and the franchise’s future direction. She needs to determine where on the rebuild spectrum the Lakers sit.

If they are not the next Thunder or the next Timberwolves, and are instead the next Magic or the next Kings, the calculus changes. She needs to assess how much of the stocked Lakers roster is due to the expertise of her brother and Kupchak, and how much is due to some excellent lottery luck. She needs to assess whether a front office that has struck out repeatedly in free agency is best-suited to take the franchise the next step up the ladder.

This is not a unique consideration for any NBA owner. The owners of other franchises will need to do the same in April.

What makes it weird in L.A. is that the owner has to decide to push out her brother (who is also a co-owner with an equal stake) and, if so, whether the ejected brother will fight back and tip the C-suite into chaos. What makes it weird in L.A. is that Jeanie Buss’ decision could send the Lakers into a civil war that could end up with the franchise being sold off and assets divided.

That’s what makes this story so fascinating and what makes the NBA community hang on the Busses’ every word. What happens this season and how Jeanie perceives the hope Jim is selling could have enormous effects for one of the most profitable enterprises in professional sports.

Some, including Jim, want to convince us the deadline is overblown. That’s only true if Jeanie believes it’s overblown. Nothing suggests that is the case.