Subscribe
Follow Us
The Los Angeles Lakers and their fans were in shock when Magic Johnson suddenly stepped down as the team's president of basketball operations a few weeks ago. He did it during an impromptu press conference before the team's final regular-season game against the Portland Trail Blazers.
There has been a lot of speculation as to why Magic decided to leave his post with the Lakers, but he said one of the reasons was because of the “backstabbing and whispering” going on within the organization. Johnson refused to give further details about it, but he said he still sees Buss as a sister and will help the Lakers recruit free agents this summer.
NBA analyst Ric Bucher is now offering up some fodder regarding that potential “backstabbing.” Bucher was recently a guest on Colin Cowherd's show “The Herd” and said it is possible Johnson resigned because of some critical email exchanges between Jeanie Buss and general manager Rob Pelinka.
“My understanding is that there were some emails that were exchanged between Rob and Jeanie…about Magic and about what Magic was and wasn’t doing. They were critical emails. And somehow, someway, Jeanie, from what I understand, was CC’ing or blind CC’ing Magic on everything. That was sort of protocol. Standard issue.
Somehow, the exchange between Rob and Jeanie ended up on that string of the blind CC’s that were going to Magic. So, Magic now is seeing emails from Rob to Jeanie that were critical of what he was doing and maybe most important in all this is that there was no indication that Jeanie was backing Rob up in terms of either going to Magic and letting him know this was going on or going back at Rob and defending Magic. That was not happening and so when he talked about the backstabbing, to me, my understtanding that’s what started it. The fact that Jeanie waved goodbye and said ‘Thank you for all that you did’ was that she didn’t necessarily disagree with what Rob was saying.”
If this is true, it's just more proof the Lakers are being poorly run and have failed to resolve any internal issues privately, which is a big reason they're in this mess.
With Johnson gone, Pelinka is reportedly pulling double duty. Not only is he going to be busy convincing players to sign with the team this summer, but he's also overseeing the Lakers' coaching search. There are reports that the team isn't looking for a replacement for Magic, so Pelinka appears slated to be the lead dog in the front office.
The Lakers are continuously digging themselves a hole they might not be able to get out of, as the uncertainty surrounding this franchise grows more and more each passing day. They will have to figure this out before presenting themselves as a desirable destination for the top-tier free agents, otherwise, they might have to settle with overpaying players.
