The Lakers made a major shakeup to their front office on Tuesday, as Jeanie Buss announced that Magic Johnson would be the new President of Basketball Operations, while general manager Mitch Kupchak would be fired and Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Jim Buss would be relieved of his duties and return to simply being one of the Lakers’ owners.
Johnson had been very open about his desires to be in charge of the Lakers over the last week-plus, and most expected his return to the organization as an advisor three weeks ago to signal change was coming and be bad news for Jim Buss and Kupchak. The move coming two days before the NBA trade deadline stunned everyone, and there were no warning signs from Adrian Wojnarowski, Marc Stein or any of the NBA’s premier news breakers, instead the Lakers just dropped a pair of tweets and a release and sent the NBA world into a frenzy.
NBA fans, media and players were all caught off guard by the news and took to Twitter to react, as everyone tried to figure out what this meant for the Lakers, and also to get these jokes off about the Lakers and bring back a lot of Magic’s bad basketball takes over the years.
https://twitter.com/netw3rk/status/834104866930835456
Magic Johnson and Larry Bird can now negotiate trades against/with each other. Wrap your head around that.
— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) February 21, 2017
So the Lakers decided two days before the trade deadline was the right time to fire their top basketball executives? What a clown show.
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) February 21, 2017
Magic back to the Lakers, it's only right..
— 🏁 Jamal Crawford (@JCrossover) February 21, 2017
Really feels like the Bulls, Knicks, Kings and Lakers are just slugging it out lately to show which team is most crazy-lookin right now.
— Chris Herring (@Herring_NBA) February 21, 2017
https://twitter.com/jtylerconway/status/834106411483328512
— Zach Harper (@talkhoops) February 21, 2017
The Lakers don't have a general manager. It is trade deadline week. Holy smokes. https://t.co/pe7KLVSYhD
— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) February 21, 2017
Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Danny Ainge pic.twitter.com/cgW3xLzoVS
— CelticsBlog (@celticsblog) February 21, 2017
Can anyone be dumber than the Kings?
Lakers: HOLD MY BEER
— Greg (@gwiss) February 21, 2017
— Jared Dudley (@JaredDudley619) February 21, 2017
He's got the best vision board https://t.co/vycw5cHagG
— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) February 21, 2017
when ur trying to reach magic johnson before the trade deadline pic.twitter.com/0WmvDJrle3
— Ben Detrick (@bdetrick) February 21, 2017
So the two candidates are Kobe’s agent and Kobe’s previous agent? https://t.co/iSfUVsZgqj
— Andrew Ungvari (@DrewUnga) February 21, 2017
the fight to be the worst-run franchise in the NBA is my NBA Finals
— Michael Levin (@Michael_Levin) February 21, 2017
Free headline idea, Los Angeles:
COUP DE LA
— Yaya Dubin (@JADubin5) February 21, 2017
