As the land mines in LA continue to go off the NBA and the Lakers fan base is wondering when it will end?
Let’s recap the Lakers season fast if you missed it. Rondo and Brandon Ingram got suspended for 4 games for fighting Chris Paul. Almost all of their valuable young guys were on the trading block for Anthony Davis. Ivica Zubac was traded for Reggie Bullock which hurt team chemistry. Lonzo Ball and Lebron James missed substantial time with injury. While Brandon Ingram had surgery for a blood clot issue at the end of the season. Through the player issues, the team finished with a record of 37-45 which is two games better than last year.
The end of the season brought more Drama for the front office. Three days ago magic Johnson stepped down as president of basketball operations for the Lakers in a surprise press conference. This was news that he hadn’t told anyone not even Lakers owner and Magic’s “sister” Jeanie Buss. When asked why he was making this decision he gave a number of reasons. Some of those reasons being that he wanted to go back to being a mentor to other sports stars, he wants to focus on his business success and just go back to the happy stress-free life he was living before this job. A few of the basketball-related reasons were that he didn’t want to cause a rift between himself and Jeanie, there was a lot of backstabbing Amongst find office staff. To this day Jeanie Buss, Rob Pelinka or Luke Walton have commented on Magic’s departure.
However, on Saturday, April 13th Luke Walton and the Lakers officially decided to part ways. Luke Walton will go on to coach The Sacramento Kings. Luke is in the final stages of signing a contract with GM Vlade Divac.
Although Luke Walton hasn’t spoken out yet we can only speculate some of the reasons he moved on. From the magic johnson press conference, you do get that he was given the right to fired look but chose not to. So we can only imagine Luke felt he was unjustly blamed for the season and jumped ship before being booted out. These big moves have begged questions from fans and commentators such as: who should the Lakers go after in the offseason? Who will be the new coach and President Of basketball operations? Who should the Lakers draft in a loaded draft class? And the biggest question is will Lebron James request a trade in order to make the best out of the end of his career? Unfortunately, these are questions that will go unanswered for a while. My advice to a Lakers fans pulling out there hair right now would be to look at the glass half full. You have LeBron, young guys, cap space and freedom in the front office to change the culture.
