Former Lakers great Magic Johnson is on the record speaking about a failed trade that would have sent him to the New York Knicks. The story goes back all the way to 1996 when the Los Angeles Lakers point guard discussed lining up a potential trade that would have made him the face of the franchise:
“I wanted it to be (with the Knicks), but we couldn’t work it out,” Johnson told the New York Daily News in early February 1996. “It was a little bit more than just talk. We had talked about it, what would it take, the whole thing and the Lakers said no. And that was the bottom line.
“Pat (Riley) always thought that I could add the leadership, bringing the team together, that whole thing. And he thought I could make some passes to (Patrick) Ewing because of my size and then add something down low, another scorer down low. If you go back to that (Houston) series, if they had one more scorer, they win that series. That’s what he was looking for the one guy to give him that 15-17 points, but, from the inside, that could make everybody else better. He was trying to win.”
A recent chat between Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic and Johnson's then-agent Lon Rosen cleared up what might have taken place back then before Johnson's retirement in 1991.
“He did not try to arrange a trade,” Rosen said after having a hearty laugh. “That did not happen. Something else happened but more of a friendship thing between Pat and Earvin and a driver hearing them talk. How’s that? It was never going to happen.”
“There was no talk of setting up a trade between the Knicks and the Lakers,” he continued. “Trust me, I was the one that was involved deep in the middle of anything that would have happened and I know what happened. There was nothing. It was a made-up story back then.”
If it was a made-up story, Magic Johnson has one hell of an imagination.
Considering this admission came well-after his heyday and during his last playing days in a Lakers uniform, it's strange to think Johnson would want to spark controversy before finishing out his career as a lifelong Laker.
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