In the end, the job was not what Magic Johnson thought it would be.
He had been a friend, advisor and sounding board to Jeanie Buss for years, so when the lead Lakers’ owner asked him to take over running the franchise for which he is an all-time great, he said yes. But the job itself is work. A grind. With restrictions on what he could say and do publicly — Magic was constantly running afoul of or flirting with tampering rules. By his own words, he felt like he was in handcuffs.
So he unexpectedly quit before he had to get his hands dirty and fire Luke Walton (which Buss had giving him permission to do).
Magic’s first Tweet since he stepped down — in a rambling 40-minute press conference where he said plenty — was to thank everyone with the Lakers.
Thank you to Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, General Manager Rob Pelinka, Coach Luke Walton, the Lakers players & the entire basketball operations staff for the tremendous opportunity to serve as the President of Basketball Operations for the @Lakers. I will always be a Laker for life.
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) April 10, 2019
No doubt he feels that way.
But he has left the organization in a bind heading into a big summer if they are going to win a ring in the LeBron James era.