Magic Johnson abruptly resigned from his post as the Los Angeles Lakers' president of basketball operations earlier this week for reasons too many to count. Perhaps the most notable among them, though, was Johnson's suggestion that his justification for stepping down on the eve of exit interviews with players and coaches was the possibility that he would be too overcome with emotion to fire Luke Walton face to face.
Two days later, Walton is still the Lakers' coach as the franchise regroups amid even more turmoil brought on by Johnson's completely unforeseen departure. But if he had remained with the forum blue and gold going forward, Johnson apparently had three familiar names in mind as Walton's potential replacement. According to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, Los Angeles had interest in Mark Jackson, Tyronn Lue, and Monty Williams to be the team's next head coach.
Former Cavs coach Tyronn Lue, Sixers assistant Monty Williams and former Warriors coach Mark Jackson were on the short list of candidates to replace Walton, with Lue and Williams being the primary targets, sources said.
This news comes as no surprise.
Rumors of the Lakers' preference to replace Walton with Jackson and Lue first surfaced months ago, before the team endured the 6-11 stretch — while an injured LeBron James watched from the sideline — in January that ultimately doomed their season and made Walton's seat on the sidelines even hotter. Prior reporting in the immediate aftermath of Johnson's resignation indicated Jackson, Lue, and Williams were the strongest candidates for Los Angeles' job should it become available, too.
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