Another night rolls by where I quietly pretend the Lakers don’t exist and that what’s happening to them was just a few insufferable years of rebuilding. After LeBron signed I was overall confused with the future direction of the team. The Lakers wasted the end of Kobe to tank and draft in the top 5 like they pretty much never have before. They got D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, Jordan Clarkson, Brandon Ingram and things started looking up. The Lakers needed a superstar or two to bring everything together and they picked about the only one that didn’t make any sense. The Lakers need a Giannis, Westbrook, Paul George, Kawhi type of superstar. LeBron can’t even get them in Space Jam.
Giannis Antetokounmpo has declined a role in Space Jam 2.
'I don't like being Hollywood"
More: https://t.co/EKKlPAHWgm (🎨: IG/shiftrefresh) pic.twitter.com/3suvQkI7s7
— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) April 9, 2019
Plus, this is one of the most prestigious franchises in the history of professional sports, there is no way anyone would be given the keys to the Ferrari that wasn’t a good driver. The Lakers slowly and surely filled front office positions with questionable basketball people, until those people outnumbered the good ones. Magic Johnson is an icon–a basketball legend who seems like a fun guy to be around. He draws crowds and money and people like LeBron to LA. Magic is great for LA, but terrible for the Lakers. He wants to live life like Magic fucking Johnson. I can’t say I wouldn’t feel the same if I had a billion dollars. But unfortunately being the president of basketball operations takes just the bare minimum of effort and Magic would rather be able to send a few tweets to his favorite players.
Magic Johnson says he likes to be free to congratulate players such as Russell Westbrook when he hit the 20–20-20 mark. Says he couldn’t be himself and he hasn’t informed Jeanie Buss yet.
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) April 10, 2019
With the Lakers in the most vulnerable spot in team history, needing a leader and actual plan for the future, their president of basketball operations just quit because he is scared to disappoint the owner by firing the coach because truthfully, Magic has no idea if Luke is a good coach or not. No idea how to build a team around LeBron that doesn’t completely destroy the team within 5 years because LeBron doesn’t actually care about winning or basketball. He has no idea how to have a simple conversation with someone who has been emotionally involved with Phil Jackson for a decade. Never mind those pesky tampering rules.
Magic Johnson shocks – well, everyone – and announces he’s stepping down as president of the Lakers. Says he’s not yet spoken to Jeanie Buss to tell her. Says he’s sick of tampering rules, he’s tired of the “backstabbing” & says he didn’t want to disappoint Jeanie by firing Luke. pic.twitter.com/m50VKQmmDR
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) April 10, 2019
Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka visited with LeBron James and agent Rich Paul on Saturday, league sources tell ESPN. Johnson offered no indication that he was on the brink of bailing on the Lakers, sources said.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 10, 2019
This is legitimately insane. Is Magic Johnson a complete psychopath or is he truly that dumb? I would believe either scenario. To basically ghost an organization with no warnings is diabolical or just so fucking funny. I wish I could see the humor in it.
I wish this is where it stopped for the Lakers. A choice I made in childhood with the expectations of continued success and dominance is now looking bleak. Honestly, I’ll admit it sucks when all your teams aren’t good. My Texas Tech Red Raiders just lost the national title and today The Athletic released a story of Rob Pelinka telling Larry Nance Jr no biggie he should totally buy a house in LA with his fiance because the Lakers had no plans on trading him.
Nance Jr. and his fiancée, his college girlfriend, were interested in buying a house. He wanted to get a sense of whether the Lakers planned on keeping him around, and Pelinka told him that the Lakers would only trade him if it meant landing one of the game’s three best players. He told him to buy the house, multiple sources confirmed.
Before Nance could get that far, however, he received a call on the morning of Feb. 8, 2018. He and Jordan Clarkson had been traded to Cleveland in a salary dump that cleared cap space for the Lakers to be able to offer two max slots in the summer.
The Lakers do not have many emergency exit routes left. Either Jeanie Buss needs to step up and figure it the fuck out or Kobe is going to be forced to run back into our arms and save us like Ryan Gosling in The Notebook.
With the season ending in a 6th consecutive season playoff drought, marking our first year under the LeBron regime with literally no other free agents signings in sight, I do not know how to turn this ship around. The worst part is that I don’t think the Lakers do either.