Magic Johnson Discussion

I kinda fear what Magic putting “his people” in place would have looked like. Couldn’t be worse than Kurt, Linda, and Rob probably though, so this is a no-win scenario, all come out looking bad. The “Magic made people have panic attacks” part of the article today didn’t really bother me today anyway though, as much as he has to defend himself for that now. This is the NBA, it’s billions of dollars, yeah, you should probably try to create a happy work environment because that’s just the best way to operate, but it can’t always be that way, and if you can’t handle that you probably shouldn’t be working for the Lakers. I’m not gonna get all fake mad about Magic being a tough businessman, the stuff about him showing up once a week or once every two weeks, overruling the scouting department, reading Rob’s menu of roster/trade moves and picking one, all that bothers me way more, that’s inexcusable crap if you’re supposed to be turning the Lakers around.

 

Or three, he’s Magic Johnson, nobody tells him no, and he does what he wants. When he got pushback on wanting Luke AND Pelinka out, he said F it, I’ll go back to my regular life, and I don’t blame him. This isn’t a Magic hit-piece, it makes Rob and Jeanie look just as bad as him, it’s not even a Lakers hit-piece, it’s an exposé, the truth being revealed by those who were there to experience it every day and finally decided to speak. If Jeanie out this article all she did was make the entire org look like more of a joke.

 

Why would Magic need to sue? Does this seem to have hurt him or his brand/businesses in any way? Not that I’ve seen. It isn’t a crime to be tough on your employees, so he won’t suffer any actual consequences, it’s just for ESPN ratings and will die down eventually. Seriously, did Magic look anything less than comfortable and care-free when ESPN sat him down with probably his 2 biggest supporters and old friends at the network? The term sycophants came to mind while watching it, and then I later saw twitter using the same word, which just made me laugh. This is such a non-story regarding Magic in the end, like I said before the only things that bugged me was the stuff about how little he actually showed up to work( which I completely buy because pretty much every Lakers writer/reporter has confirmed it) and his overruling our scouting department in the draft. Magic will be back on First Take in July though, he said as much today, so this will go on because ESPN eats it up. And also, if you’re waiting for Jeanie to speak on this or resign, you’re going to be waiting a loooooong time.

 

To me, this article didn't include anything we didn't know already about Magic...

It sheds some more light on the incompetent snake he teamed up with than it does hurt Magic. Magic never came across as particularly bright of a person, nor did he look like a shy guy who wouldn't vehemently impose his will.

I just hope the media continues to bash the Lakers until we see serious changes and hopefully Jeanie disappears from the scene.

 

Regarding Magic, I’ve never seen him as the most knowledgeable guy. What was initially intriguing about him, was he said he was going to come in and put the best people possible in every place he could, and I assumed he meant like with the Dodgers. But he didn’t do that, maybe he didn’t have the full authority, but he didn’t. As far as knowledge of players, have you not seen him tweet? Did you not see him coach? The greatest players of all time are often not close to the greatest talent evaluators, GMs, coaches, in fact a large number of them have been disasters at it. This guy is not a good talent evaluator, he’s one of the best to ever play the game, a Laker legend, but that’s on the court, read these tweets.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...pretty-questionable-player-evaluation-skills/

To the second part of your post, that Jeanie thought Magic was qualified for this shows her lack of vision in only relying on Laker family. That she thought Rob Pelinka was qualified because Kobe told her he could do the job is a joke. She couldn’t get a second opinion? Because apparently everyone not named Kobe can’t stand the guy. So yes, I agree, she’s in over her head, she refuses to bring in qualified people to right this thing and wants it run like the family business, and she is too emotional when it comes to her friends and maybe even her attachment to players. It was reported she was mad at who Magic offered up for AD, and in this business you can only be so loyal to your players who aren’t stars and going to make your team win, you can’t have players like Kuz and Zo looking untouchable when they really haven’t done a whole lot just because they love being Lakers and are like family. It’s not family unless we’re talking players like Magic and Kobe who stayed their whole careers, and even then it’s not fully family until the end of their career because they can always be traded if it betters the franchise and you’re a good owner.

 

They can hit back. The problem is you ain't winning a gun fight with a knife.