As owner Jeanie Buss and general manager Rob Pelinka prepare to run the Los Angeles Lakers, reports of what led to Magic Johnson’s shocking resignation continue to pop up.
Recently, Ric Bucher of Bleacher Report believed the reason Johnson resigned is due to Buss and Pelinka criticizing his performance in an email exchange that he was blind CCed on.
However, this was never confirmed due to the pure outrageous nature of the report.
While it remains unclear what ultimately led to Johnson’s resignation, this report has been ‘adamantly denied,’ according to Bill Oram and Sam Amick of The Athletic:
The real reasons for Magic’s departure remain somewhat murky, but a source with knowledge of the situation adamantly denied the report indicating that Jeanie had mistakenly shared e-mails with Johnson that were critical of his job performance.
At this point, almost no amount of crazy would be surprising, but the email report seemed almost too unbelievable. Especially considering that in another report, Buss had given Johnson complete control over basketball decisions.
However, it is interesting that with Johnson gone, it seems unlikely they will go after a replacement. Instead, it seems their plan is to keep Pelinka on as sort of a lone general manager for now.
Pelinka’s solo tenure — despite being rather pressure-free at the moment — has started off surprisingly well. Pelinka has been in charge of the team’s head coaching search that has interviewed four candidates.
While it seems pretty clear that an email exchange was not the reason for Johnson’s sudden departure, the Lakers have done just fine in the beginning stages of his absence.