Things have been a total mess in L.A. for the first 2 years Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka have been in control. We have created a timeline of the events over this time and we ask you the question. Are Magic Johnson & Rob Pelinka FAILING The Los Angeles Lakers?
Timeline Of Events:
March 7th 2017 Hires Rob Pelinka the long time NBA agent and former agent of Lakers legend Kobe Bryant as the teams general manager.
Magic Johnson Hired February 21, 2017 as the President of Basketball operations
Jun 20, 2017 – 21 year old, 2nd overall draft pick in the 2015 draft D’Angelo Russell traded to Brooklyn in an effort to dump the horrible Timothy Mozgov contract. Russell is now 23 years old and just played in his first all star game scoring 20 pagan and just short of 7 assists in exchange for Brook Lopez who only had one year left on his deal and the 27th pick in that draft that you gotta give the lakers credit for selecting Klye Kuzma with that selection.
june 22nd Lakers select Lonzo Ball 2nd overall in the 2017 NBA draft. With that selection they passing on Jason Tatum, De’Aaron Fox, Lauri Markkanen, Dennis Smith Jr., Donovan Mitchell. Magic must be given credit for Drafting Kyle Kuzma 27th and Josh Hart 30th in the same Draft. the 30th pick was acquired in a draft day trade with the Utah Jazz
Magic Johnson Lands LeBron James. This came as no shock to many as LeBron was rumored to be going to the Lakers for some time. I don’t know if credit it due to Magic Johnson to to the geographical location of the Los Angeles Lakers and the ventures LeBron has going on outside of basketball.
Julius Randle is allowed to walk after the Lakers refuse to match a 2 year 18 million dollar deal all for the sake of keeping cap space open.
Letting Brook Lopez leave to the Bucks on a one year 4 million dollar deal. Lopez expressed that he preferred to return to L.A.
The rumor has now came out that Luke walton and his coaching staff urged the lakers front office to to Lopez and Randle.
Magic constructed a team around LeBron James with pieces that are opposite the floor spacing, 3 point shooting guys that were always the winning format with the cars and heat.
September 1st 2018 – Lakers buy out Luol Deng’s contract after failing to move him and refusing to include young assets to get it done like done in the Timofey Mozgov salary dump. the move cleared cap room for the lakers to use on free agents but still counts as 5 million a year against the cap.
Thursday february 7th when the 3pm trade deadline passed the Lakers had failed to land Anthony Davis after irresponsibly offering the entire young core for Davis. A.D. is great but injury prone and NOT with the entire young core. Johnson was saved by the stubborn New Orleans Pelican front office.
Magic traded Zubac all so they could keep cap space open for the summer in return the lakers got center Mike Muscala who’s got range and is seen as a potential floor spacer.
So this is all the main player movement that has taken place since Magic Johnson took over the Lakers front office. Im going to ask you… Are Magic Johnson and Rob Palinka FAILING the Lakers?