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Rudy Garciduenas was one of the most sturdy and respected links on the Lakers’ food chain. Today he works in a food truck.
For 26 years, through Showtime and Shaq‘s Time and Kobe‘s Team, Garciduenas served as the Lakers’ equipment manager, one of the few reliable constants in a sea of locker-room change. Two seasons after losing his job in a purge of staff members who were close to departed coach Phil Jackson, he has traded a life of passing out uniforms to one of passing out Brah Barbeque Pork Sandwiches for $8 each.
His story is an old one, and a new one. It is the time-worn Hollywood tale of the fleeting existence of those who serve the stars. Yet it uniquely involves an organization that was long run like a family, a Lakers culture that has slowly chilled since the benevolent late Jerry Buss placed its basketball operations in the hands of son Jim.