I do agree that Johnson would be a good marketing point for the franchise. Phasing out Jim Buss I have no qualms about. Same with Kupchak given the recent accounts of his inability to close deals. If Johnson were to assist and place the right/competent people in place as Ju said, fine. His comments makes it appear that he will be overseeing trades, drafts and free agents. Is he an "advisor" like West is with Golden State as initially reported or now general manager? Director of player personnel? We'll know soon enough when the dominos start to fall...
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...ers-magic-johnson-meet-mitch-kupchak-jim-buss Magic's "call the shots" comment is exactly what I thought it was. It was taken out of context. Someone asked him a question and he answered it. He also clarified that he wants a gm to make calls and he'd be the one rubber stamping it. Basically he wants to be the owner.
did you read it? There is no amendment or backtracking in it. It even digs in further with "report to me" statement. Don't see how it made you feel more at ease, assuming you had issues with Magic wanting to call the shots.
Magic might be a good "sales" guy (MIGHT) but he won't do much good for us. I'll remind you that, when we end up with all our young guys gone while Joe Johnson's of the league are on our payrol...
If Jeannie is making changes, the obvious change is Jim. So the real question is, is Mitch part of that? And who could we get that is better? I don't believe the only change is bringing Magic in. And even if it were true, he'd want to bring in his own team. Standing pat is no way to create change.
It would be very weird to me if the Lakers were owned by anyone else but the Buss family. I don't want to see a new owner making silly moves to shake things up like adding a goofy mascot or something.
You said his "I want to call the shots" was taken out of context. Nothing in the linked article supports that claim. Moreover, he doubles down on it by saying stuff like "report to me", "in the end someone needs to call the shots and I'd love to be that guy", "he would always want a "day-to-day" general manager in place' - which indicates that he would be a final-decision general management - the closer. How about this one: What context, exactly, was this taken out of?
It really seems you didn't read the article. Or maybe you didn't read the one from USA Today. Maybe both. USA Today posted an article that said simply that Magic wanted to call the shots. It provided no context and it threw the quote out there causing a fuss (the one you're having right now in fact). This article from Ramona clearly shows Magic was lead. He was asked what his role was and Magic said as an advisor. They said do you want to call the shots and he said he was just an adviser, but that he'd love to call the shots. He said Jim calls the shots and that Magic is just a voice in the room. He said one day he'd love to call the shots. How is that not a greater context? Do you have a different definition of context? Just because you don't like the context doesn't mean it wasn't provided. He also said he envisions a role in which a GM reports to him about goings on and decisions and Magic says yay or nay which is exactly what Dr. Buss had. He said the GM would be the one with their hands on the minutia. Coupled with his previous statements that he learned frok Dr. Buss about empowering people to do their job, I dont agree with the concern that Magic would be doing too much. It's all Jim Buss's position which is what every single one of us knew Magic was after when he took the job. It would have been disingenuous for him to pretend that he wasn't interested in that position and if he'd said he wasn't, most would just call him a liar. I've made this position pretty clear. You can disagree with it, but it's not hard to understand my position.
I'm sure part of his job description is being "the face of the franchise" now... it'd be great if he had something better to say than "I wanna run the franchise!" Like "we just traded for Paul George!"
