Los Angeles Lakers controlling-owner Jeanie Buss seems pretty happy with her choice to hire Hall of Famer Magic Johnson for the role of president of basketball operations, having yielded a mega-star in LeBron James in less than two years at the helm of the front office.
“I have complete faith in Magic Johnson in terms of his ability to be a leader, to know how to put together a winner, and I have patience. I think what he's done has exceeded my expectations,” said Buss as a guest in The Rich Eisen Show (via Ryan Ward of ClutchPoints) “How quickly they've kind of turned around the roster.”
The Lakers had fallen off the victory trail as Kobe Bryant's career dwindled through a series of injuries, but the revival wasn't happening due to a lack of stability within the franchise, going from one coach to another without a plan in mind or a vision to follow.
“For a while, it was hard for me to see what Laker basketball was because we were changing coaches every 18 months,” said Buss.
“You can't create an identity. There seemed to be a lack of stability in terms of where our eventual goal would be, and when Magic came in that kind of settled down and you could begin to see what kind of personality the Laker team was going to have.”
Johnson came in with guns blazing, determined to make the purple-and-gold a winner once again and bring back the glamour that once adorned the franchise and its star players.
Magic made his biggest splash yet by reeling in James as a free agent this offseason, signing him to a four-year, $154 million deal that will put him as the cornerstone of this franchise for the rest of the decade.
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