The Los Angeles Lakers need a new president of basketball operations after Tuesday night’s stunning announcement from Magic Johnson that he was stepping down from his post, two years after taking over.
Johnson held court with the assembled media in L.A. in a surprise press conference that no one was expecting. Magic hadn’t informed owner Jeanie Buss, star LeBron James, or anyone else in the organization of his decision before gathering the media to let the public know.
The Hall of Famer explained he just wasn’t having fun in his position, and wanted to go back to being him without the handcuffs that come from being an official team representative — he on multiple occasions cited tampering violations and not being able to tweet like he wanted to. It was a shocking announcement and leaves the Lakers in need of a new leader entering a critical offseason.
Still, Magic is Magic and even quitting his job in the manner he did isn’t enough to bring any public frustrations from the Lakers, who issued a statement later on Tuesday night thanking him for his time leading the team.
There is no greater Los Angeles Laker than Earvin Johnson. We are deeply grateful to Magic for all that he has done for our franchise – as a player, an ambassador and an executive.
We thank him for his work these past two years as our President of Basketball Operations and wish him, Cookie, Andre, EJ and Elisa all the best with their next steps. He will always be not only a Lakers icon, but our family.
As we begin the process of moving forward, we will work in a measured and methodical fashion to make the right moves for the future of our organization.
The last part is, of course, the most important to the franchise going forward, but they don’t have all that much time to be methodical in their decision making. The draft will be important as they’ll have a lotto pick once again, and this is a hugely important free agency summer for the Lakers. They’ll need to find someone they want to run the show relatively soon, and given the shock of this news, they’ll be starting from scratch in their search.
