There has been a lot of speculation about who the Los Angeles Lakers will replace former president of basketball operations Magic Johnson with, or if they’ll even do so, but the answer always seems to return to the same conclusion: That general manager Rob Pelinka is already taking over that role.
It was already reported last week that there was no secret candidate to replace Johnson and that this would be Pelinka’s show to run, but Sam Amick and Bill Oram of The Athletic more extensively confirmed those rumors, clarifying that the Lakers haven’t even tried to recruit or gauge the interest of the bigger name executives that so many speculated they might attempt to lure:
Yet while rumblings remain that Buss might replace Johnson with an elite front office executive at some point, and with so much pressure from local and national media to conduct a comprehensive search for a new president of basketball operations who isn’t required to have deep Lakers ties, a source with knowledge of Jeanie’s plan insists that this front office is Pelinka’s to run.