LeBron James’ stint with the Lakers may have not gone as expected so far. Together, they have won only one NBA championship – far less than predicted. Right now, they don’t even look capable of making the playoffs.
But four years ago, they seemed to be the perfect match for each other. The King had been dominating the league for years, while the Purple and Gold needed a player of his caliber to get back on their feet.
Magic Johnson, who served as Lakers president from 2017 to 2019, recently revealed in an appearance on the Club Shay Shay how he convinced James, but also revealed one regret about it.
Magic Johnson regrets not telling LeBron James he would quit as Lakers president
“I regret not calling LeBron and telling him that I was stepping down. I owed him that,” Johnson said, via Fadeaway World. “I wanted to fire Luke Walton… I said, ‘Hey, we gotta let him go. He is not the right guy.’… and they wanted to keep him and I said okay. I didn’t want to fracture the great relationship I had with Jeanie Buss… So instead of me just sitting there, I said let me just exit, it’s gonna be best for everybody and I felt some dude wanted to be in the seat that I had.
“I pitched him this way: You can be responsible for the greatest franchise in the world, turning it around and leading us back to a championship. And they’re going to say you did that. And I said, ‘Give me two years.’ I said, ‘We gon’ win the championship that third year.’ And everything I told him happened.”
It’s hard to believe that the man who deserves credit for LeBron’s signing didn’t get to be at the organization when James led the Lakers to the 2020 NBA title. However, that doesn’t change the fact that Magic is responsible for landing one of the all-time greats to LA.