LOS ANGELES – In an unbelievable twist for the Los Angeles Lakers to end the 2018-19 NBA season, Magic Johnson has stepped down as the president of basketball operations.
All the speculation heading into the season finale at Staples Center on Tuesday night was what the immediate future would hold for head coach Luke Walton, but that has become an afterthought with Johnson deciding that heading the front office is no longer a job that he's comfortable with.
Before the season finale against the Portland Trail Blazers got underway, Johnson surprised everyone by conducting an impromptu press conference. Although Johnson didn't waste any time announcing his intentions to step down, the 59-year-old went into detail about a number of reasons why he had made the decision which came out of nowhere.
“I had more fun when I was able to be the big brother and ambassador to everybody,” Johnson said.
The one thing that seems to not have sat well with Magic during his short stint as team president is the decisions that needed to be made which impacted the lives of players and coaches. The upcoming decision on whether to part ways with Walton may have been what had him leaning toward leaving his post as president of the storied franchise.
“No, I was happier when I wasn't the president,” Magic said of his position with the team. “When you've got to make trades you're not happy. When you like people. I think Luke is a good man. I like Luke a lot, so what we have different opinions about different things. That's okay. That happens in life.”
Walton's fate remains up in the air as the season comes to a close and Johnson's resignation further complicates things as it will all now rest of Jeanie Buss and what she'd like to do moving forward. Buss has been an avid supporter of Walton and has led many to believe she doesn't want to part ways with him once the season is over.
Johnson, however, wants to maintain his close relationship with who he refers to as his “sister” as that is his primary concern following his decision to resign.
“My concern is really my relationship with my sister, and that's Jeanie Buss,” Johnson said. “That's all I care about. All the rest of the stuff don't really matter.”
Even though Johnson clearly wants to his close relationship with Buss to continue, the owner of the franchise has now been put in an extremely tough situation after one of the toughest seasons in recent memory due to expectations following the arrival of superstar LeBron James.
Jeanie will be tasked with replacing Johnson, making a final decision on Luke and his coaching, while also hoping Magic's successor can bring in another superstar in free agency this summer. A tall task, to say the least.
Along with announcing he was stepping down and showing his support for Buss, Magic also talked about the things he didn't like about the job he chose to undertake after Jeanie decided to fire her brother, Jim Buss.
Johnson did not like some of the things that would happen behind the scenes while running the front office in Los Angeles.
“Also, what I didn't like is the backstabbing and the whispering,” Johnson said. “I don't like that. I don't like a lot of things that went on that didn't have to go on.
“There's a lot of that going on in this whole world of professional basketball. There's a lot of that goes on, and so I'm going to leave it at that. I'm not talking about our organization. I'm talking overall.”
Outside of an impressive start to the LeBron era in which the team was able to reach as high as fourth place in the Western Conference, things absolutely fell apart when James went down with a groin injury on Christmas Day against the Golden State Warriors.
The superstar forward missed a career-high 17 games before coming back from his injury. Along with the new face of the franchise going down, the team dealt with numerous injuries throughout the season with Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart, and Kyle Kuzma dealing with health issues along the way.
As if that wasn't bad enough, trade rumors also took a toll on this team once New Orleans Pelicans star Anthony Davis let it be known he wanted to be traded with his desired destination being Los Angeles. This sent shockwaves throughout the team with trade rumors surfacing on a daily basis involving the team's young players like Ingram, Kuzma, and Ball.
“No. That had nothing to do with it,” Johnson said on if Davis situation impacted his decision to resign. “We want to improve the team. That's what my job is to do, and then you guys made it like, ‘Oh, the young guys. The young guys better grow up quick.' Because this is a part of basketball, this is a part of sports. This is a part of life.
“When you enter into professional sports, and you enter to the NBA, your name will always be sometimes mentioned in trades, and you have to deal with that. Just play your ass off and go play. That's it. And you know what, credit to them [pointing at the Lakers locker room]. They did that.”
This clearly took a toll on Johnson who wasn't fond of the way the team was portrayed in the media and the impact it had on his players. Magic did admit that it was whispering and backstabbing within the Lakers organization that irked him.
“There's a lot of that going on in this whole world of professional basketball,” Magic said. “There's a lot of that goes on, and so I'm going to leave it at that. I'm not talking about our organization. I'm talking overall.”
Even with all he dealt with as president in the short time he was calling the shots, Johnson is pleased with what he and the organization was able to do and thinks the team is one superstar away from contending with the best of the best in the West.
“I'm happy with what we did in two years,” Johnson said of his short stint. “I'm not disappointed on anything I did, any trade I made, none of that. I'm happy about the direction, and if the young guys mature the way we feel they can mature, I think that this team will be outstanding, especially if you add one superstar to this bunch that we already have.”
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