Magic Johnson….Quits? What?!
The historic franchise that has seen a ton of Championships, 16 to be exact, is crumbling before our eyes. The days of Shaq and Kobe have turned to the days of Alex Curruso and Javale McGee. Enough said right there.
Coming into this year the Lakers finally had some optimism to get back in the hunt. They landed the biggest free agent maybe of all time, Lebron James. They also signed one of the greatest players of all time, Magic Johnson, to run the team. What could go wrong?….Everything.
Lebron haters are laughing their way to the couch after seeing the King not make the playoffs for what seems like the first time ever. To have a guy reach the Finals an unprecedented EIGHT straight years in a row, then change conferences and not even make the playoffs? It is not only surprising but embarrassing. It was only a matter of time before he didn’t reach the Finals and that streak ended, but not making the playoffs? Shameful.
The destruction seemed to start with the Lebron injury in December. A guy who has been remarkably durable and healthy throughout his reign, finally got hurt. And he didn’t roll his ankle or have “cramps” in the Finals. He tore up his groin, and anybody that’s ever done that knows it’s brutal. Then from there you gave Bron some time off. But not time off in dumpy Cleveland. No this was time off in LA. He clearly moved there for a combination of on court but off court motivations as well. This injury let his off court interests shine. He now had time to dick around in Hollywood not just sit in a house in shitty Cleveland. No he was riding around Los Angeles with nothing to do and he seemed to drift away from basketball for really the first time in his life. I swear I’ve seen more ‘Executive Producer: Lebron James’ credits on shows, TV series, rap albums (smh) the past 4 months than I have in his lifetime. Now he has Space Jam 2 coming out too? And a horrible Barber Shop series on HBO? We knew his move to LA would turn him Hollywood but his injury streamlined all those off-court interests.
Now to Magic. It has happened a decent amount of times throughout the history of the NBA. Great player, wants to stick around the league, thinks Coaching/GM’ing a team is easy, and gets hired. Then about half a season into their new gig, realize, “Holy Crap this job is tough. I thought I could just smile to reporters and watch games from any seat I wanted in Staples? You mean I have to grind my balls off scouting, watching tape/games, negotiating with tons of people at all hours of everyday? Damn. I’m out.” HA!
That seems to be the exact narrative of this move. Magic, just like MJ, was great. But it takes a hard working savvy businessman to run an organization. Especially one valued at about $3.3 Billi. You know how hard it is to run Apple? Or Netflix? (I understand those all $100+ Billi companies but you get the point) You can’t just be a good ball player and walk into knowing the finances and negotiating skills needed to not only run a billion dollar business, but also manage a MegaStar like Lebron. Magic didn’t even travel to away games? It was Phil Jackson all over again. The embarrassing saga which was the Anthony Davis trade that never happened, also a major turning point. This fool tried to trade his entire roster away for one guy, and still couldn’t get the deal done!
I almost give Magic credit for realizing how over his head he really was in this role, and bowing out before too long. He nipped it in bud after just one year of awfulness. MJ could have done the same but he has too much pride and financial interest in his awful team. But Magic grabbed his shit and left as soon as he could. ‘That job way too hard, I’m out’
So Long Magic. You should probably take a break from showing face at the Staples Center for a while.