Magic Johnson Discussion

Uh, did any of you actually read the article?

Ramona called the organization a dumpster fire, said Jeanie enabled the entitled attitude of Magic and others in the organization, and ends by saying that Jeanie needs to evaluate why she continues leaving the franchise and herself in a bad position.

Why are we dismissing this as Ramona being Jeanie’s mouth piece? I think it’s fairly unbiased and so totally accurate in calling out Magic’s ego.

 

You said this earlier so I'll say what I said earlier in that the difference is Griffin will still be around and in the office daily and as much as the rest of the team, like any normal PBO in the NBA .... and not spending 60-70% (or whatever the hell it was) of his time running his own business empire.

Magic did say today that he told Jeanie up from he would be part time. Well that's not what he spun and pledged to Lakers Nation when he took the job of every single day every single person in the organization would be committed 100% in their own responsibilities to bring the Lakers back to greatness. No hyperbole from me here .... I remain surprised from when I first heard he was gone so much and PISSED OFF feeling like I as a fan was baited and switched. A part time effort in fact from him toward that goal. Agree with someone else today here who said it would have been better if he had taken on a Jerry West type role and helped hire a great and "experienced" PBO that would have been there full time. Then this all doesn't blow up like it did.

 

Because West saw the writing on the wall and was skeptical probably and alarmed when 1st year in as head coach he also starts dating the owner's daughter.

 

jeanie deserves 99% of the blame in all of this mess, but Magic during his presser after being hired did say he was fully commited to the team n now he says he was only in it for 3yrs, that dont sound like "fully commited"...so that refutes all his "talk"....n to justify magic not being there majority of the time by comparing other bpo delegating day to day task is a reach that stretch armstrong couldnt achieve

 

Vash I won't say your points are wrong or right. I mean it's all speculation because everything is "leaked" which, I know you already know, is based on the "leakers" desired outcome.

From the stand point of not wanting Klutch to gain to much control I don't fault anyone of that in the FO. That being said, Magic is suppose to be a closer. He is suppose to be the one who can get in Jeanie's ear. I mean the man's claim to fame is that charm and ability to bridge the gaps. We really thinking he got outplayed by Rob P and the Rambis family? How I see it is Magic wanted to run the show. Jeanie had her idea of running the show. I don't hate on either for wanting to do that BUT that being said Magic has been a snake on the way out but that is just my personal opinion.

As far as striking out on Lue. Yea, I wasn't sold on Lue personally anyway. He was blasted with Bron and then they won and "woooo Lue?" Personally I think no matter who the FO gets we are going to hate it in some way or another. Remember before Phil won with Kobe/Gasol we wanted his head too. I want to see what the team does before I murder any of the new hires/players (TBD).

I don't think Magic is the problem. He is part of the problem. He set it up to be clean when he bounced. He is now setting fire to the org to get even cleaner. Jeanie has a lot to prove even more so than before I do think the heat is on higher thanks to Magic. We can crash harder and further but we can also do big things. Like I said before, as a Dodger fan, I know Magic does a lot more as a face of a franchise than he actually does IN the franchise.

 

watching magics interview felt like i was watching dr. phil.

 

jeanie needs to sell the team. its clear that none of the buss kids are fit to run the franchise

just don't sell the team to magic

 

Have you seen the prices of those jerseys now? we might have to dig up Rooscooter's grave to get his fair share just to place a downpayment

 

Magic doesn't have enough money to buy the Lakers. Someone would have to buy the Lakers for 4 Billion. Likely someone like Larry Ellison or one of the AEG peeps.

Tell you who I would love to buy the team and that's minority Patrick Soon-Shiong. He loves the Lakers and is brilliant. He would be a less boisterous Ballmer. Hire the right people, enjoy the games.

 

Mr. Bonkscooter?

 

Bonk was the nephew, Rooscooter was the dead uncle who kept a list of CL members who were cool, probably

 

Thanks for the thoughtful response, Puff.

But you know Magic sold a small Laker stake to Dr. Soon-Shiong in 2010 and at that time it was rumored he was angling to buy another ownership stake with another team (Pistons). That never happened...but as you know as Dodger fan that he bought a small stake of the Dodgers in 2012.

Again, if the ultimate plan is to steal ownership away from his Buss "siblings", this doesn't appear to be the most efficient route in doing so.

Also, Max is the one that pushed that question several times before Magic honestly answered it.

It's a smart business move to own the Lakers and I see that as nothing more.

But I stay cooped up, so I wouldn't know what a coup looks like.

 

Hi guys,

What a crazy day! I'm extremely busy this week and of course this had to happen today! I'll do my best to break it down, and once again apologize for any delayed responses as I'm on the road and in weird timezones.

I haven't been able to sit down with the AEG guys and get the full breakdown of what happened with Magic's interview today.

Disclaimer: Nobody in the Lakers front office has told AEG exactly why Magic did what he did. I'm not sure how much they communicated with him and how open he was after the fact. But, I did get some insight into why the Lakers "think" Magic did this, at least from their (obviously biased) POV.

What I did ascertain is that the Lakers feel that this is Magic's way of "getting back" at the front office, as he was forced out and that left a bad taste in his mouth. Magic likely felt that someone of his stature should not have had to leave in the manner he did. Also, Magic was taking a lot of negative heat about his unprofessional departure even in his other business ventures (again, don't have concrete evidence of this) and wanted to set the record straight. The Lakers have opted to take what they feel is the "high road" and acknowledge what Magic said but deny it. They won't be leaking or speaking much to the media about this in the near future. Although things tend to slip through the cracks in such a large organization.

I will say that based on the past information that I knew (and mostly shared), what Magic said is about 50% true and 50% false.

The backstabbing with Rob isn't 100% true. Magic wanted to fire Rob and wasn't allowed to by Jeanie. Looks like she brought Tim into the mix as well. I didn't know of that previously, but it makes sense that she would have him interfere on her behalf. Then the whole email drama happened and Magic found out about Jeanie protecting Rob and them talking behind his back. Of course Magic denied the emails business but it undoubtedly happened. And that's when he got mad at Jeanie and mostly Rob. He felt that Rob was undermining him a bit with Jeanie's help. And he did want to fire Pelinka, despite the fact that he (obviously) denied it.

When Magic refers to "Shaggy P" - it's about what I said. Not the incident itself, but the fact that D'Angelo was isolated from his teammates and most of the influential folks in LA (other athletes, actors, etc -- people NBA players associate with) and was potentially headed down a dark path. It wasn't a healthy situation for him. Plus there was the cap space. This part was true.

The stuff about Muscala is true, I gave some more details before as well I believe. The part about Brook Lopez is also true.

The stuff about Jesse and Joey is also true. They wanted to "right the ship" so to speak. In fact that's why they were begging Jeanie to call up Bob Myers and pushing for Lue to be the coach. Magic was the one preventing them from rising to leadership positions they should have been in, due to fear about them undermining his decisions. For example, with the Mitchell Robinson thing. He alluded to all of this by saying they asked him for more responsibility and he wasn't giving it.

The Lakers FO feels that Magic made the comments about selling the team to sort of make the front office look bad, and then make it known to the public that he'd be willing to step in. They felt it was an amateurish public bid for the team, and they're absolutely not selling it, especially to Magic after what he just pulled. Don't know why he said it, but that's what they feel.

More to come. I've been in the air and messages are getting delayed. As soon as I know anything more I'll let you know. I'm as curious as everyone here!

 

Hi @Savory Griddles

Completely understand why you're questioning things here! I definitely would encourage you to question everything you hear over the next few days! Nobody in the Lakers front office or AEG predicted this was going to happen!

As I outlined earlier, Magic was upset about getting forced out. There were many reasons, including his lack of presence in the office, using his position as President to heighten the valuation of his other businesses, and creating a drama about wanting to fire everyone, including Luke and Pelinka. The straw that broke the camel's back though, was the article. That was the "smoking gun" and gave the Lakers the leverage to finally push him out the door. It also brought AEG in for legal and optics reasons, who did the dirty work.

Notice, how the First Take guys (who work for ESPN) didn't bring up that article even once, although rumors of it were all over the news just weeks prior. AEG did a good job of squashing it and making sure ESPN as a whole acts like it never existed. That was not a coincidence.

Magic pulled this stunt because he was bitter, or at least that's what the Lakers think. And it makes sense. The article is never going to come up because neither him nor the Lakers will bring it up. He will obviously look bad, and the Lakers are legally liable because the harassment happened under their watch on company time. He knows it's sort of a "mutually assured destruction" and doesn't feel scared to take public shots at the Lakers as a result.

Anyways, we'll definitely see things unfold over the next few days. For today, the Lakers have chosen to keep quiet, barely leak to the media, and focus on Vogel's presser.