The Los Angeles Lakers made a splashy move when they hired Magic Johnson as president of basketball operations last February, ousting a front office ran by Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak in the blink of an eye. It seems the Lakers weren’t the only, or first, team to reach out to Johnson with the opportunity to run the show.
The Magic Man re-emerging as part of the Lakers organization wasn’t necessarily surprising — his love for the franchise has always left that possibility as an open door. That he was interested in taking over as the top basketball decision maker in an NBA front office seemingly came out of nowhere.