The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Magic Johnson, Lakers, and Jeanie Buss

Episode Date: April 10, 2019

Colin discusses Magic Johnson stepping down, the current state of the Los Angeles Lakers, the warning signs, and what owner Jeanie Buss should do going forward. Guests include Nick Wright, Chris Broussard, Bill Oram, and Ric Bucher. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise,

breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on. A Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire, World. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle

with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Thanks for listening to the HARD podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday from 12 to 3 Eastern, 9 to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio

and FS1. Find your local station for the Hurt at Fox SportsRadio.com or stream us live every day on the IHartRadio app by searching Hurd. You're listening. Welcome to Fox Sports Radio. Oh, here we go. Live in L.A.

No better place in America to be today, that's for sure. This is The Heard, wherever you may be and however you may be listening. We're on IHeart Radio. We're on Fox Sports Radio. We're on FS1. Joy Taylor is joining me today. Well, it was quite an evening in the NBA, not just for D. Wade. Quite an evening, Joy.

What do you mean, Colin? It was so quiet. It's a normal forgetful night in NBA history. You know, it's funny. All the big brands in sports right now are doing pretty well. The Duke basketball, Notre Dame football, Yankees, Red Sox. You know, a lot of the big brands, you know, Michigan football, Kentucky basketball. They're all got their act together, all except the Los Angeles Lakers.

Oh, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. Magic Johnson, Team President steps down, doesn't tell anybody. So let's start there. We've been saying this for weeks, actually a couple of months. People around Los Angeles say, Colin, you've turned. You're so tough on the Lakers. No, I'm not. I'm just honest.

My loyalty is not to fans or teams or brands. It's to honesty. It travels with me, job to job. Being an NBA team president sounds glamorous. A lot of jobs do. But it's a complete and utter grind, mostly in your office or traveling to Dusseldorf to find a backup point guard. Magic goes on a yacht five weeks every side. Dumber with a bunch of his buddies, does it every year. It's awesome. Wish I could. But you can't as

team president. It's a grind job with a glamorous title. And Magic wasn't up for it from day one. And I actually thought last night was perfect the way Magic resigned. It's the way he ran the Lakers off the cuff, unprepared, rambling, making it up day to day through the media. that's how he would have resigned, right? He's beloved. He's universally liked. He's a really, really nice guy. And today he'll get mostly a soft landing because he's magic.

He's hard to not like. You can not like MJ or Kobe's intensity or LeBron's ego. A lot of stars you can not like. Magic's impossible to not like. Meet him once, you like him. Lights up a room. But yesterday what Magic did, let's be on. honest. It was embarrassing and it was unprofessional. And it was kind of, it was just a rambling,

incoherent mess of stuff. And that's how he ran the Lakers. He didn't tell his boss, Jeannie Bus, didn't tell Rob Polinka, didn't tell LeBron. LeBron's people, didn't tell anybody. Didn't tell the PR person. They were all scrambling to catch up. Well, Colin, you know, Magic's got a lot of, he's distracted. He's got a lot. Then don't take the job. job. No excuses. Own it. Mears. They still work. Don't take the job if you're not ready to commit. It's why Chris Mullen got fired at St. John's yesterday or resigned. He wouldn't put in the work. It's why Clyde Drexler. A star was a disaster coaching his alma mater, Houston Cougars. Show up at Tipoff. Wouldn't put in the work. I thought actually when I watched this,

it was the perfect way for Magic to resign. The way he ran the team, just kind of rambling, not really buttoned up, not fully committed, not detailed. It just felt like the same reason he didn't work as a head coach, a late night talk show host, a team president. You got to be fully committed. I say this about comedy all the time. You think comedy is just fun in games. No, the best comedians, it's a serious business.

Steve Harvey is writing jokes all day. Howard Stern's writing jokes the minute he gets home. Jerry Seinfeld, comedy's a serious business. A lot of businesses, look like fun, maybe this one. It's a complete nut or grind. NBA president, it's not a 50-hour work week. It's not a

60-hour work week in certain times of the year. I'm not the only one saying this, and I'm not the only one been saying it for months. Adrian Ward Janowski, I read his tweet yesterday. He said, since taken over, Magic never fully committed to the job. Traveling away from the team. Office hours limited. Didn't do a lot of scouting. Running a team

takes tremendous commitment of time and energy. I like magic. He's impossible not to like. But he said something yesterday during that kind of rambling, neither here nor their discourse, that was like shocking. Here it is.

Did anybody see this team? Everything is in place. We add one guy and this team is in the finals, in the Western Conference finals, because we're not too far away from everybody. We're heading in the right direction. That's what I'm concerned about. If we were not,

probably be staying, but since I feel we're one star away and one or two role players away. And so I'm happy. I'm happy. Compared to what, the Phoenix Suns? That's like saying I'm a nose, smaller ears, perfect skin away from being George Clooney. It ain't close, folks. Okay, this is closer to the Titanic than it is, you know, smooth sailing luxury liner. We're just a star away.

Yeah, you couldn't get an interview with Lamarcus Aldridge. You couldn't keep Dwight Howard. Just a star away. You don't have the assets. Lonzo's not healthy. Either is Brandon Ingram. LeBron's aging's got an injury. Listen, Magic needed to step down.

That part I like. His motives are fairly clear. He wanted a Can Luke Walton and Jeannie Busted Not. But this organization, and this is why I've been ripping it for two months, I'm not loyal to teams that I live in the city of. My job is not to protect the Lakers. It's to be honest about the Lakers. They don't need my protection.

Okay? They got too many celebrities, too many Mercedes in the parking garage. I want a few beat-up preludes. I want some grinders. I thought Magic actually was completely, completely honest with the one thing he said about leaving the Lakers. Let's play this. I want to go back having fun.

I want to go back being who I was before taking on this job. I was happier when I wasn't the president. I'm not the guy who I have to watch what I say, put a muzzle on me, you know, that type of thing. I'm a free bird, and I've been handcuffed and I don't like that. He's totally honest. Magic is. That's why he didn't work as a late-night talk show host. That's why he can't be a coach.

That's why he can't be a team president. It's why it was a mistake hiring him. Magic's a great guy. The Dodgers Magic is the perfect magic. He sits in the stands. He's funny. He goes on pregame shows. Everybody likes him.

He connects people. I mean, he's like a human LinkedIn. He's like a human Facebook. I mean, he just connects people. That's what he does. Like, Magic is offended if you don't come to him when you move to Los Angeles and you don't come to Magic and say, hey, can you help me? Magic's offended.

He is LinkedIn. He is Facebook. That's why he's great. with a big old smile and a big warm hug. But this job's for grinders. This is a grind job. And Magic admitted it. I want to be magic.

Then go be magic. We love that magic. Let's not mess with that magic. That magic's awesome. Team President Magic never fit. And he admitted it there. Let me shift to this. Jeannie Bus now, she's the owner of the Lakers.

For those who don't know, her father, the late great Jerry bus on the Lakers, and then got some kids, Jim and Jeannie. Jeannie's always been like Operation Side, right? Not the basketball hoop side. She hires people for that. Very well liked. A lot of energy. Universally liked. Good person.

But this I don't like. After Magic bailed and didn't give her a heads up, she ran to Twitter and said, Oh, Irvin, I love working with you. We come a long way. We'll continue the jersey. We love you. Heart emoji, heart emoji. No, stop.

No, no, no, no. That's not the time for hard emojis. I need grown-up, Jeannie. I need hard-ass Jeannie. I need Jeannie who fired her brother. Your organization is in a free fall. It's a laughing stock. The Clippers were drinking Cristol last night.

They're going to the playoffs. I don't want to ever see a hard. heart emoji until you're in the Western Conference finals. This is the tweet I want to see from Jeannie Bus, who again, this is in her. She should have come out and said the Lakers will immediately begin the process of finding a president who's fully committed to bringing this organization another championship. Little shot at magic, he deserved it. Walked out, didn't give you heads up.

It's not the time for hard emojis. Pat Riley this morning, if somebody walked out on him, not doing heart emojis. There's a time and a place for those. It wasn't after somebody bailed on your world-class organization. It was adorable. It was sweet. And it looked incredibly lightweight. And you're not.

I need hard-ass, Jeannie. Walks in a room and people go, oh, she just fired her brother. People are a little tense. People know that you own the team. It is grown-up time. Okay? That's what it is now. Does it mean you don't love her?

But the message last night to consumers and fans is, I still love everybody. I'd be pissed. You should be. Your late great father would be. This is not the way you do business. Call it impromptu press conference and bail on everybody. Not acceptable. You can do the tweets and the hearts and all that stuff.

That's part of your brand and you're awesome and I love you. You should be a little angry this morning. You should be a little defiant this morning. You should take the reins this morning and go out and find the world's best GM. Magic divorced you through Facebook. He unliked you. He didn't give you a heads up. Magic called Jeannie his sister.

Well, guess what? Sometimes sisters have to turn to brothers and say, we're cutting you off. It's time. The Lakers are in a full-fledged circling the drain crisis. The Yankees aren't. Michigan football isn't. Duke basketball, Notre Dame football, Red Sox, Dodgers aren't. Every big bad.

Real Madrid isn't. Manchester United isn't. Every big brand in the world is humming except the Lakers. Celtics are. They're fine. Guys in the building, clippers, they're rolling. May get Kauai. It's crisis.

All hands on deck. I want to see some butt kicking. It's in you. I've seen it. I like it. I want more of it. All right. We are loaded today.

There is a massive, massive fork in the road. Two lanes. The Lakers have to pick one. The Clippers did. The Warriors did years ago. Celtics did, the Lakers in the next two to three months have to make a choice. And I'll lay them out for you. You tell me which one you'd take.

That's coming up. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the IHeart Radio app. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories

behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Keer Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience

in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Trip Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch.

Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross. Because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth. Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person.

Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen, kingdom on earth.

He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering our meaning, businessman, catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world. He doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levin this plant to a billion dollar fraud.

But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in America. in history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards.

If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't belong. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs, Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladeke. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile. That means the world to me, and that's what motivates me to win more gold medals.

At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. By the way, maybe you can't with your new tag.

refund afford a new car you could afford a paint job m m m a c o maco today get your dream paint job during tax season sales event joy i hope you get a tax refund are you going to get a big tax refund there uh i wouldn't say big okay all right laker season ticket holders with like a refund speaking of that so magic johnson resigned last night president of the lakers exit interviews today luke's not talking polinca's not talking genie's not talking lebron's not talking we're talking nice to have you in Nick Wright in about five, ten minutes. This happens to people a lot in life, businesses, people, all sorts of times. It's called a fork in the road moment.

You can go left, you can go right. And my opinion's always been, whatever way you go, you go hard and you don't look back. I've done it multiple times in my life. You get a fork in the road. Stay with this company, go to a new one. Go hard and go all in. But pick a lane. Don't split it.

The Lakers are at the fork in the road time in their franchise history. Now, the Celtics had this. Remember, they had an old KG and an old Paul Pearson, Ray Allen moved to Miami, and they said, let's just get rid of them. They trade them all to Brooklyn, get a bunch of draft picks, trade Doc Rivers, get Brad Stevens, fork in the road. They went total rebuild. Clippers had this opportunity years ago.

Lobb City, Blake, Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan. They want a draft picks. They wanted more free agent mobility. They moved on. Remember the Warriors a couple years ago, the current NBA dynasty? Chris Mullins, Jersey retirement ceremony. The new warrior owner, Joe Lacob, got booed by the fans who were upset. They chose young Steph Curry as the future and not the all-star Monta Ellis.

Do you remember this was Rick Berry? Remember that night? Show a little bit of class. This is a man that I've spent some time talking to. He is going to change this franchise. Come on. You're doing yourself a disservice. All of the wonderful accolades being said to you

for you to treat this man who is spending his money to do the best that he can to turn this franchise around. And I know he's going to do it. So given the respect he deserves. And that man did it. fans are generally wrong on that stuff. Steph Curry was the right choice. Not the really talented Monta Ellis who sort of disappeared after that.

And the Clippers, by the way, were right to do what they did. They weren't going any way with Lob City. The Andre Jordan and Blake Griffin were overpaid. Chris Paul needed better teammates. And by the way, the Celtics were right to get rid of their stars too. In all three cases, they moved off the All-Stars to rebuild. And they were all right. Celtics, Clippers, warriors, they were all right.

So the Lakers now have two choices. Here's the fork in the road. A, just turn the team over to LeBron. Hire Ty Loo or Mark Jackson. He's represented by clutch sports. Hired David Griffin as a GM, formerly in Cleveland. LeBron always liked him. Go hard after Kyrie Irving, who LeBron's played with.

and give up all the young assets and go get Anthony Davis. That's left. You can go left and do that. Or you can go right and actually, you know, build a team, build a new culture, keep your young guys, have a plan, stick with it because you bounced around in your plan multiple times. You had a plan, then you re-signed Kobe for two, and then you had a plan and you brought LeBron in a different plan. Or you can build a new plan and look for younger free agents and not necessarily max guys. and this would involve trading LeBron.

What? Work for the clippers. Work for the Warriors. Work for the Celtics. Are you saying Colin they should trade LeBron? I'm saying it is forked in the road time.

What would I do? I'd sit and I'd think about it for a few weeks. And then I would fly my corporate jet. You can do that when you own a team. And I'd go to teams. and I'd sit down and I'd meet in private places and I'd see what I could get for LeBron. And I would listen to all the offers

because I still think LeBron's going to come back next year and be great. But if he suffers one more major injury, oh my, my, my, my, my, this is an utter disaster. Fork in the road time, you have to look long and hard at yourself. Fork is build it all around. round LeBron go all in on him or consider trading him and see what you can get. I'm not telling you which one's the right one, but I am telling you if I ran the Lakers, I'd make calls, I'd listen to offers, I'd see if there's a Brooklyn out there that would

give me basically every draft pick in the next eight years. I would listen, and if a team would do that, then I'd move him. If somebody gave me nine number one picks or whatever it was, or is it night, whatever it was. If somebody backs up the Brinks truck and gives me a decent player or two and a bunch of draft picks and free agent flexibility, I'd listen. I think LeBron still has remarkable value. Again, it's fork in the road time.

I'm not telling you which is right. But I'm telling you the Celtics and the clippers and the Warriors moved off the All-Stars. Now, they weren't LeBron, but they weren't. moved off them, and I think they all won. You have to at least take calls, make visits, and do something in sports that always works. Listen. Just listen.

Call, ask, put the phone on speaker, and just listen. Joy Taylor with the news. No, no, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. few other things happened in the NBA last night, aside from Magic. Yeah, a couple things. Walking away.

A few other people walked away from the game also. Wade County said goodbye to the legend last night. Flash had his final home game in Miami and American Airlines Arena and he will play his final NBA game tonight. Let's watch Dee Wade say goodbye to the 305. That was tragic. Let's try it again. Let's do it this way.

All right. As simple as this, Wade County. I love you It's pretty crazy This is going to be his last game with Adonis Haslam also 30 points for Wade Yes

A great send-off for Wade Before the game They played a montage with his son They played a piece That Barack Obama President Barack Obama Recorded for him And then he also gave a speech

Before the game thanking each of his teammates From this year individually For you know Kind of going on this ride with him Obviously they missed the playoffs And it's kind of a weird thing

to be with a star like Wade on their last year, you know, the farewell tour. So he thanked him all for that. And, you know, pretty decent career. Wade's wrapped up. Well, and he touched a lot of people in that community. And sports does what the government would love to do but often fails at. It heals the broken and empowers the poor. It changes communities.

That's what government's supposed to do, but so often fails. Sports does it a lot. And that's why it elicits the fierce loyalty that it does for stars. And for teams. I mean, also when you have a star like Wade or like Dirk, we're going to talk about in a second, who's in a community for an extended amount of time and is able to, you know, it doesn't move around or, you know, nobody counts to shorts in Chicago,

whatever, with Wade. Like, it has the years there to actually make an impact and a footprint in the community. It's even that more effective. I mean, we're not going to talk about the Budweiser clip that I saw emotional yesterday. But of all the things that Wade's accomplished, The thing that always sticks out to me the most is that he has the most blocks by a guard in NBA history. Yeah. Well, he probably plays bigger than any player in league history.

Nobody at 6'4 played like 6'9. He plays like a small LeBron. He played, he and LeBron were actually a weird fit because they had the same game. And Wade was like a smaller LeBron. He was just so fit. When you look at LeBron and Wade, you're like, oh, they could have played the NFL if they wanted to. Like they're just big, strong, physical, attack the rim. And that's probably why they, one of the reasons they get along.

They know each other. Their games, their games are kind of replicas to a large degree of each other. So good years. Sticking with last night, speaking of Dirk, after a season of speculation, he made official he is retiring from the NBA. Let's watch his announcement after the Mab's final, or home finale. As you guys might expect, this was my last home game. Yeah, I'm trying my yoga breathing, but it's not really working that well. but this is obviously super, super emotional.

A lot of emotions going on yesterday around the NBA. Yeah, and I hope it's not lost. The Mavericks did a sensational job on that. I mean, they did a, and Mark Cuban's crying, and they brought in stars. I mean, the closest thing to Dirk is Kevin Durant. He's got a Larry Bird, a Kevin Durant. He's a top, you know, 20, 25 player of all time. And known throughout the world in basketball as,

the nicest guy that's ever played. Like one of the all-time great guys. Yeah, he's had an incredible career, 21 seasons, all with the single franchise as an NBA record, MVP in 2006. I mean, he's, really, the game lost two legends. We're seeing an incredible turn in NBA history right now. Kobe, Wade, Dirk. We've lost them.

We're starting to, you know, have the discussions about LeBron, like not retiring, obviously, but, you know, there's a change coming across the NBA right now. So we saw those two legends retire last night. And finally, Russell Wilson recently gave the Seahawks in April 15th deadlines to get a new deal done, which has led to some speculation and even trade rumors. And Jack Del Rio appeared on the NFL network this week and poured some gasoline on those rumors. He said, don't be surprised that before it's all said and done when we line up for the season next year, if Russell Wilson isn't quarterbacking somewhere else and the Seahawks haven't gone and gotten a quarterback, they think, for the future.

Interesting. Jack Del Rio like Pete Carroll, defensive guys. I didn't want to pay a quarterback a zillion dollars. I'm not not what I would do, but I'm just saying, by the way, I mentioned two months ago, Russell playing elsewhere. In the last two months, we've had a deadline, we've had discussions, I'm telling you, there's stuff behind the scenes. Russell wants to own this franchise now, and there's some pushback within the walls of the Seahawks. There's some talks about a three-way trade involving the Giants, the Cardinals, and the Seahawks.

Excuse me, Joy, what team did you say? The Giants. Oh, well, I could barely hear you. The New York football giants. I did. It was brought up on a certain show and I was mocked by the nation. The Cardinals and the Seahawks. I don't understand it.

I don't know why you would want to move off of Russell Wilson for an unknown. And just everything we just talked about with the legacy and the impact in the community. And obviously, he's also a winner. I don't understand it. But crazier things have happened. Who knows? We'll see, I guess. Yes, we will.

We'll. Pay the quarterback. Joy with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Heard Lye News. Okay. It was the rambling press conference,

the ad lib press conference, heard round the world, magic a step down and via the Coward Global Satellite Network. Nick Wright calls, first things first. All right, let's start with this. Fork in the road. Celtics, Clippers, Warriors, chose young guys. Of course, they didn't have LeBron, but it is a fork in the road time for this organization.

I think I know which direction you would go, but what do you make of my premise to begin with that it's choice time? Well, the choice has to be get the best possible president of basketball operations. I would call Toronto and I would try to talk to Missai Ujiri. Brian Windor suggested they try to talk to Bob Myers in Golden State. I would, if you can't get that level of person, I would call Houston and try to elevate Gerson Roses, Darry's right hand, or Boston, and Mike Zarin, Danny Aange's right hand. No matter what direction you want to go,

you've got to try to talk to one of those guys. David Griffin obviously is a name that's associated there. And I think a smart basketball person will come to the conclusion that I have come to, which is on your fork in the road, you go the direction with LeBron. Like, to compare this to the Celtics situation where you had an aging, almost finished, Pierce and KG, an impulsive trillionaire owner in Brooklyn

that's going to give you three firsts and three pick swaps. And by the way, now that we've got hindsight, so what the Celtics got out of that, the best asset was Jason Tatum, and Kyrie's leaving, and Brooklyn is actually in not that much worse of shape. That's your best case scenario. And they never ended up with a true blue chipper, and because of that, they never were true title contenders.

For the Warriors, yes, smart basketball people know this kid, Steph Curry is better than Monta Ellis. That, to me, wasn't a real fork in the road. So I agree with the premise that they have to go hire a smart forward-thinking president, but I don't think a smart forward-thinking president is going to trade away the greatest player in the history of the league. By the way, Bill Orham writes for the athletic, smart guy connected, covers the Lakers, lives out here in Los Angeles,

said basically in a long story today that LeBron turned off teammates. And, you know, I mean, listen, I think people forget that when you go to these great teams, Magic Johnson, as a Laker, was called Tragic Johnson, and Kobe had two years when the city turned on him post-Shack. It's not linear. Like everybody's got a bad, even Magic and Kobe with the Lakers, had a bad year or two or series. So I read Orem's stuff and I think, yeah, he's right.

What was your takeaway on it? Listen, I think that there's two seasons for the Lakers within the one. There's everything up until LeBron's injury, in which case it was all rosy and good and leadership was good, and the coaching looked good, and the roster construction didn't look disastrous. And then there's everything post-injury, where not only did other guys, post-Christmas, I should say, LeBron gets hurt, other guys get hurt.

Luke Walton's rotations come into question. The roster construction comes into question, and LeBron makes some clear, I believe, strategic and almost cultural issues as far as how he deals with the young players. The full two-armed embrace around Anthony Davis didn't sit well with the young players. LeBron's aloofness, passive-aggressive on social media,

didn't sit well with young players. His two palms to the sky, whenever anything goes wrong on the court, this thing has never sat well with teammates. We heard about that in an article a few weeks back. So I think LeBron clearly had a bunch of misses this year once the season was slipping away. He also doesn't have a ton of experience dealing with young players.

This is the youngest team he's played on since his rookie year, and the teams that have won with LeBron have always been veteran-laden teams. And I think once the adversity hit, LeBron and everyone within the organization didn't handle as well as they should have. What do you make a magic, Johnson? I said earlier that Dodgers magic is the perfect magic.

Joyful, he's a human LinkedIn. He connects people. That's what he does. Laker magic is, you're asking him to be a grinder, and he's got like $500 million of net worth minimum. He's not really a grinder. What do you make in the last 24 hours for magic? Listen, I think there are a lot of celebrities that are sports fans

that really think they'd love to have your job and think they'd be great at it and say, you know, oh my God, I talk about sports every day. Like, yeah, let me do Cowherd's job when he finally retires in 2042. And then they're like, wait, you get in when? So wait, you do a two-hour. show before the show to prep the show, and then it's three

hours of just talking, and then it's preparing and wait, so you're actually working 12 hours a day if you include everything you're doing? I think Magic thought, yeah, I could run a team. I love hoops. I watch hoops. I know

people. I have LeBron's number. This is... A few weeks ago, I reached out to Daryl. You know where he was? In Spain, watching a player named Sergio Yol, who he drafted seven years ago, trying to get him to come over for the sixth consecutive offseason. This is a big time job that I'm not saying Magic isn't equipped for, but I don't think at this stage in his life he was equipped for the workload.

He didn't even forget going to Spain. I'm told Magic didn't even go to the final four. What? The final four? Kind of a big basketball moment. moment if you're building a team with a lottery pick. He didn't want to do the work. And he thought it was going to be like being the face of an operation as opposed to the brains behind the operation. That's not saying magic's not smart, but I don't think he wanted to put in the intellectual effort

or the man hours that this job demands. Finally, got a minute left. Luke Walton, keep him firing what you do. Come on. Luke Walton didn't get better because Magic quit. Luke, listen, Colin, I know your big market guy, got investments all over the place. The market will speak on this. Luke Walton will get fired, and there will be plenty of NBA teams that have openings, and none of them will hire him. And maybe his alma mater, the University of Arizona, will let him come be a head coach, and if not, he'll be an assistant somewhere.

No matter what fork you take, no matter what roads you take, no matter what path you take, If on that path, Luke Walton is your head coach, you're not doing the best you can do. There are plenty of other viable options that aren't going to draw up out of timeouts, post-ups for Javelle McGee. And so Luke Walton, maybe your next job, you'll be better at it. But this one, you weren't, and that can't be blamed on LeBron. Interesting stuff. Nick Wright, Coho's first things first. I don't know, there's something going on with him, Joy. He looks a little hipper and cooler lately.

It's almost like he's got a stylist. He's really coming together, really buttoning up his act. A lot of jokes. A lot of jokes at Nick Wright's expense. That's fine, Colin Goward. You're 3,000 miles away, so there's not much I can do. So I'll just smile and say goodbye. Good to seeing you, buddy.

And you can also listen to him on a radio channel. Mad Dog Unleashed. I listen to him every day. Okay, I've got some thoughts on Luke Walton. And I, by the way, when Luke got this job years ago, I got tons of crap because I said, you're not ready to coach an NBA team. So, you know, what do you do with Luke?

I've got strong feelings about this. And I just want to, I'm going to throw it out there and you tell me what you think. But I got a definitive opinion on this and I've seen it my whole life. That's coming up. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. Last night, a blown call changed the game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending.

Opinions are flying. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. Every episode we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real.

From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live, them listen to sports slice on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast and for more follow timbo slice life 12 and the ticot podcast network on ticot welcome to my new podcast learn the hard way with me your host and your favorite therapist care games and in recognition of mental health awareness month i'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests i'm talking tripp fontaine ryan clark

Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on Earth. Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro.

Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Keir Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way. Open your free iHeartRadio app.

Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman, catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across.

When Jacob met Levin this plant to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Life throws hurdles big and small.

The question is, how do you conquer them? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout, Kate Martin, and rising hockey star, Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel on. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs, Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladeke. The ability to show a gold medal to

someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard.

Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Playoffs are here. Penguins take on the Islander 730. Discover Card Key. matchup, Discover alerts you if they find your social security number on the dark web, all those lousy websites, go to discover.com slash free alerts. Limitations apply. The dark web I was told by

Joy last week is not just one website. It's just like a bunch, it means that there's a bunch of bad websites. I thought it was one website, like www.com. Okay, first of all, I don't know anything specifically about the dark web. Okay. It's not a place I spend my afternoon. Yeah. But in general, it's not one place. I'm pretty sure it's not like www. dark web.com. Yeah, I thought it was last week, and then you inform me. And don't look that up on any work computers. Okay, by the way, Magic Johnson, according to a story here, reportedly was given power to fire Luke Walton and was going to today. And Jeannie Bus didn't want him to. That's what you're reading. That's my gut feeling of the many things. And then Magic said,

you know, I'm out. Parachutes out of the organization. Jeannie Bus and Rob Polinka were huddling last night. I'm not sure if Luke Walton survives. I am texting furiously in between breaks as of now he's the Laker coach. I will say, here's the downside of Luke Walton if you're Luke Walton. Players leave you and get better, which is the opposite of Phil Jackson, where everybody had their best ears with Phil. Nobody leaves Brad Stevens in Boston and gets better. 95% of the guys that leave Belichick in New England get worse. People leave, Julius Randall left Luke Walton and discovered to three-point shot. Brooke Lopez, best shooting year. DeAngelo Russell, All-Star, Lou Williams, it's going to be part of NBA history off the bench. When people leave you and they get better consistently,

that is a problem. I don't think he's a great coach. I never did. I thought he was over his head when he took the job. I said that and got major pushback. I said, show me his resume. What's he done? Oh, he won with the Warriors. Joy and I could coach them, you know, through most of the regular season and win 75% of the games. Mike Brown, Luke Walton, Steve Kerr, that's not a shot at Steve Kerr. It's the best offensive team in league history. Durant, boogie. I mean, Clay, Steph, here's my problem with Luke.

Not only do the players get better, but what happened to Luke I've seen happen a million times. He has a famous connected dad. Because of that, he's met all the right people in life. and through all those power brokers, he has risen quickly up the food chain and then suddenly lands after two brief years as an assistant with the Warriors as head coach of the NBA's version of the Dallas Cowboys and baseball's version of New York Yankees. That's a little quick. That's a little quick.

By the way, there's a great coach right now named Nick Nurse. Everybody thinks he should be coach of the year. I'm going to give you Nick Nurse his coaching history before he got the Raptors job. I'm just going to read this. You can put the camera on me. An assistant at Northern Iowa. A player coach for the Derby Storm. Grandview, South Dakota, Birmingham Bullets,

something called Talindus Ostende, Manchester Giants. I thought they were a soccer team. The London Towers, the Oklahoma Storm, the Brighton Bears. The Oklahoma Storm is an assistant. Iowa Energy. Is that a publicly traded company? Rio Grande Valley Vipers.

And then the Toronto Rappers as an assistant and the head coach. Had to work up. The food chain. Stay at Crapy Home. hotels, drive a Kia. Okay, that's what I want. By the way, here's Mike Malone, coaching the Denver Nuggets. Not Post Malone, not Carl Malone, Mike Malone. Here it is. His first job was Friends School of Baltimore. He was an assistant. Then Oakland, then Providence, then Manhattan. Not the city, a team. The New York Knicks, the Cavs,

the Hornets, the Warriors. Assistant, Assistant, Assistant, then Sacramento and Denver. That's what I want to see in the resume from the next coach. All right. By the way, Budenholzer, Mike Boondholyzer in Milwaukee, best young coach in the game. Coached in Denmark, 17 years with the Spurs.

Luke Walton, famous dad, lots of connections. Phil Jackson calls on his behalf, hey, you're coaching the Lakers. That almost never equals success. It doesn't equal success. I want to see cheap hotel rooms. I want to see 12 years in a crappy European League where you had to fight for scraps on the dinner table and had to figure out

how to win games or you got fired and you and your family had to go live in a two-bedroom apartment in Dusseldorf. When I lived on the East Coast, I saw this all the time. Rich connected dad, sends him to prep school, gets his way into the door at the big sports company, and Dan has never faced an obstacle. Luke did play. Yeah. Well, okay. There are a lot of guys that played. Right. But, I mean, he played for 10 years. I do think that your resume as a player should account for a little bit of a little bit of it. No, but to say that he's just been chilling and then all of a sudden got this assistant job, like, I agree he does have connections clearly. There's no denying that. The two years assistant to the Warriors? I mean, by the way, that's the easiest team to be assistant on. It's the highest IQ team in the league. I'm totally with you. And I don't, I'm not, I don't think that Luke did the best job.

thought that he could do. I think the bare minimum that he needed to do was connect with LeBron. That was his biggest mistake. But at the end of the day, those other teams you mentioned also have a lot of talent and connectivity as well. He didn't walk into the best situation. I think if he'd

been, I think he needed six more years as an assistant. I think it's hurt Jason Kidd. And Jason Kid is a point guard. I'm telling you folks, this coaching thing is hard. When you're going to get the Mike Malone's and the Nick nurses and the booting holders, and they've coached kids and 18-year-olds and 28 and 48 and vets,

and they've been crapped on and they've been, you know, coaching is hard. And sometimes as a player it can help you, sometimes it can hurt you because players think they can manipulate the coach. And sometimes you weren't a great player, you were a good player, and players don't respect you. Everybody in Milwaukee respects Boodenholzer. Like I just, I'm not saying they should fire Luke,

but I don't think he's a great coach, and I think the Lakers should have a great coach. Wild next hour next. More herd? The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the IHeart radio app. Search herd to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise,

breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room, stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls,

we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsLice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsLice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slices Life

12 and the TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tript Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about

wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person.

Join me, Kear Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free, our heart radio app. Search Learn the Hardway Listen now. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect.

We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levin this went to a billion-dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds,

just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the Aihar Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life throws hurdles big and small.

The question is, how do you conquer them? On hurdle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WMBA standout, Kate Martin, and rising hockey star, Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain.

It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't belong. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladecki. The ability to show gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile that means the world to me and that's what motivates me to win more gold medals.

At our level at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Hour 2, here we go, live in L.A. This is The Herd. Wherever you may be and however you may be listening, we are again live in Los Angeles, the home of the NBA's flaming circus.

The tents on fire. IHeart Radio, Fox Sports Radio, and F.S. one. You know, there's a lot of well-run teams in Los Angeles. The Dodgers are incredibly well-run. They pass on all those ludicrous, big contracts, end up in the World Series. Rams are well-run. Chargers well-run. Clippers well-run. Just not the biggest brand in the market is necessarily well-run. Joy Taylor is joining me. Quite a first hour flew by. Well, we didn't even get to everything yet. Yeah, we've got Rick Bukers flying in from San Francisco today. Chris Broussard, Bill Orham, the athletic who covers the Lakers.

wall-to-wall, great stuff today. I want to start with this. The silver lining in all this, and I've talked about in life the great duality. There's always a silver lining over a dark cloud and no perfect day. You want to be confident, not too confident. You want to be vulnerable, but not weak. The silver lining is Magic Johnson's no longer running the Lakers. He kind of fired himself. And you can't fire Magic Johnson in Los Angeles. Thankfully, he quits a lot at stuff and has a big life. And so that's good news. because Magic should have never been given the job. It's just not what he at this point in his life is designed to do.

So that's the good news. I don't think there's anybody inside that Laker building that knows how to run an NBA team. I'd go hire them. Nobody famous, nobody already wealthy, go hire a nerd, somebody who's bad on camera, who doesn't smile much, who can sit in a room and watch tape for hours, have a tuna sandwich, and that's it. I don't want famous. I don't want celebrities.

I don't want people I know. I don't want people who are good on camera. Bill Belichick has a tuna sandwich every day. Goes to the bathroom once. Otherwise, grind. I do have real doubts the Lakers can actually find that guy. I think they've gotten lazy. I've said that multiple times.

Playing to their brand, expecting players to just walk in and sign with the Lakers. Don't do their homework. Adrian Ward Janowski said something yesterday about magic's replacement. and this would worry me if I was a Laker fan. One name that you're going to hear Bob Myers in Golden State, listen, this is the man who built that dynasty with the Warriors, and Gini Bus's first call probably should be up north in California to see if she can pry him loose.

That's not great. And then, why don't you just replace Luke Walton with Greg Popovich, and everything will be solved? The Rams didn't hire Belichick. They hired Sean McVeigh, who they hope is the next Belichick. Texas football a few years ago wanted to hire Nick Sabin. And then they whiffed and settled for Charlie Strong. And then they fired him and hired, I believe, potentially the next Nick Saban,

Tom Herman, and they're winning. Got to put in the work. Got to put in the work, Lakers. Every time I go to a Laker game, I say those Mercedes. 80s, parked downstairs. I get it. Magic's worth a zillion dollars. I'd like to see some preludes. Scale it back a little, work a little harder, stay late, get there early.

Kind of the way Kobe designed his career, or LeBron designed his. A lot of times we see famous people. Jerry Seinfeld must be naturally funny. Chris Rock is just naturally funny. Nobody's that naturally funny. They worked at it. Jerry Bus put the work in. can his kids.

Texas football, Rams did not hire Sabin or Belichick. They went and found the next guy. Go find the next Bob Myers. Bob Myers is from Northern California. I don't know if you've noticed he's got a pretty good job. Why would he take over this shipwreck? What about Jerry West? He's 80.

What about him? He's a consultant. I'd love to have him in the building. I'd hire Jerry as a consultant, not running my team. team. Okay, let's put the work in. Not famous people, not people who have great jobs. All right, let me shift to this. You're getting a basic theme today for me. I think you've noticed. Celebrate briefly. Grind it daily. So Magic in this kind of rambling press conference said a couple things. And, you know, sometimes he was all over the map. But there was, he got into this backstabbing thing.

And he wouldn't bring that up if it didn't matter. matter. Like my wife always says, don't go where you shouldn't go. Don't do what you shouldn't do. If you bring something up, you generally want to bring it up. You know, if you get in a fight with somebody, you know, and you're talking about stuff and you bring stuff up, it's very Nick Saban. He always goes to those press conference. He brings stuff up. You bring stuff up if it means something to you. So yesterday, Magic in this press conference brought up like backstabbing and stuff. Hmm, interesting. Here it is. What I didn't like is the backstabbing and the whisper. And I, I, I, I don't like that.

You know, I don't like a lot of things that went on that didn't have to go on. What backstabbing and his family are you talking about? Well, you know, it's a lot of that going on in this whole world of professional basketball. It's a lot of that goes on. And so that's all I'm going to leave it at that. Okay. Read between the lines. Magic and Rob Polenka had had a falling out.

There was a story about a month ago. where Rob Polinka, and remember, that's where Magic and Rob Polinka really connected. Rob Polinka is connected to Kobe. Rob Polink is a smart guy, played at Michigan, agent, grinder, Kobe, grinder, Magic, not thought of as a grinder. Polinka and Magic had a falling out. There's a story a couple weeks ago or a couple months ago. In fact, I'd give credit, but I forget who wrote it, that Palinka would in the office

walk in and go, where's magic? Loud enough for people to hear. Where'd magic go? That obviously is going to get back to magic because people always want to curry favor with famous people. So I'm sure there's somebody that said, you know, Rob's walking around saying, where's magic? And that tells you there was a real disconnect.

And one of the things I've been beating on here for the last like two and a half, three months is there are so many chiefs, so many chefs in the kitchen on this thing. You've got the LeBron group with the Clutch Sports and you got the Magic group and the Polinka group and the Jeannie group. and the Jeannie's in the Luke category, but then reportedly gave Magic the power to fire Luke. You just, everybody in New England knows where it all starts. Bill. Okay.

Everybody in L.A. knows where it starts. Sean McVeigh. Everybody in the Dodgers knows where it starts, you know. Friedman, Andrew Friedman upstairs. He'll give you the lineup. He'll pay you. He won't pay you. Like organizations, there's got to be somebody.

to look to. Everybody in Bama starts with Sabin. Everything. You're not getting anything approved. He's got to have a say on it. And I know that sounds like, oh, that guy's a control freak. I like control freaks.

I always think control freak is unfair. We should give it a different word, like control Maven. You know, a maven. This guy controls things. Steve Jobs was a control Maven. This thing, Magic Polinka,

backstabbing comments? Who do you think he's talking about? A, he wanted to bring that up. And by the way, he was asked later in the press conference about Rob Polinka, and we have this too. This was kind of an ambiguous answer. Play this piece of tape. Do you think that Rob is the right GM for this recommendation?

Do I think Rob is the right GM? That's a decision that Jeannie has to make. No, if you thought so, you'd just say, of course, he's great, he's brilliant. You could have just stamped it right there, your Magic Johnson. So I think the Magic Polenka thing, and again, nobody's going to admit this stuff privately. I mean, the New York Giants, we're not going to trade Odell. We're not going to trade Odell.

We just traded Odell. Nobody's going to say stuff publicly. Nobody's going to admit stuff. But Polenka and Magic, I mean, my takeaway on watching that yesterday was, oh, these guys had a falling out, which was in line with a story I read about a month ago. All right. Is LeBron tradable? who's their next coach or is Luke staying there? And Chris Broussard had fascinating comments.

I don't want to run them yet because we're going to bring on Chris next. On a story that was going to break on magic and it got squished, squashed. I'm fascinated by a little enigma, a little mystery in the magic stuff. And we'll touch on where's LeBron going now? Because by the way, LeBron and Rich Paul were not giving a heads up on this. probably not real happy. That's coming up. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports

Radio, FS1 and the IHeard Radio app. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real.

From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kyr Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests.

I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. and we're still chasing it and we don't know when we've done enough because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross,

because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth, or are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines,

is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast. Learn the hard way. Open your free Our Heart Radio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth.

He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of us. of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levant this went to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds,

just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them?

On hurdle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you,

but don't ever feel like you don't belong. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladeki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world,

Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Saturday on FS1, we've got the Rockies and Giants at Four Eastern, followed by Robinson Canoe and the Mets taking on Freddie Freeman and the Braves. It's an MLB doubleheader Saturday on FS1.

Box Sports app. By there's a kid on the Braves that's from L.A. He went to Harvard Westlake, which is like the hardest school in Los Angeles. Max, is it fried? He's a pitcher for the Braves. Max Freed, Freed, Freed. I just read a story on him.

Hasn't given up a run in four games. Wow. He's like a kid over from here in L.A. for the Braves. He's a stud muffin. All right. Chris Broussard, you mentioned on Undisputed for those watching. It's a very popular show.

A young man named Skip Baylis, Shannon Sharp, Jenny. Up and coming. Up and coming show. And so you were on that show this morning, and I want to play a tape from that with Chris. Go ahead. The other elephant in the room

is this ESPN article that Magic alluded to, that the LA Times alluded to. There has been talk for months, months, that an article ESPN is working on is coming out about Magic's treatment of people in the organization.

Mestreatment. I heard about it. I can't. remember it was late November or early December. I had come, and I was told it was coming out within weeks of that time. I came to the conclusion before yesterday, oh, the Lakers and the league got ESPN not to do the article. Okay.

What's going on? Well, like I said, I was hearing in late November, early December, around that time that there's an article coming out. Very anti-magic? Well, not just Magic, Palinka, Rob Palinka as well. Now, Magic talked about it. He shot it down. I'm going to say this.

I don't know what mistreatment, I don't know what that is. Knowing Magic, working with Magic closely years ago, I can't imagine him mistreating people in the organization. It's just not his DNA. No, like, I can't imagine that. But I've heard it's a negative article about magic. and Rob Palinka, not just one of the other, both. So it's this article.

Now, again, I was hearing it was going to come out, you know, months ago. And it still hasn't. Someone told me recently it's because they're getting, you know, lawyers and legal stuff and making sure everything's cool with that. But I was under the impression, as I said on Undisputed, that I thought the league had gotten ESPN to squash the article. Could I simplify yesterday's press conference into this? Magic wanted Luke fired.

Jeannie didn't want to fire him. Magic stepped down. Is it that easy? That's fair speculation, but Magic said, and everyone else has said that Jeannie was giving Magic the power to fire Luke to fire Luke. There are also those that feel like Magic really wanted, now he did want Luke fired. He admitted basically he was going to fire Luke, but that he wanted Polink out too. And you obviously didn't give a ring-in endorsement of Polinka yesterday. But there are GMs around the league, people around the league that aren't answering the phone or returning Rob Polinka's calls.

Yes, I've heard that. Rob Polinka has a lot of enemies. He was a big-time agent. And he was, I mean, listen, I think he's smart. Smart people aren't always popular. I would say, you tell me if I'm wrong on this. What I always hear about Polinka, he's smart. He knows it.

And Magic said backstabbing. He and Magic had a little bit of a falling out. Didn't really respect Magic's commitment. Is that fair? Well, yeah. One person told me today, they said, look, the only problem with Magic was just he was never there. You know, his commitment, like, it wasn't, again, I can't imagine Magic was not treating people well. But he just wasn't around.

And this job, from the beginning, you knew he wasn't cut out for the ground. of a president. You got to be in the office, you got to be on the phones, you have to be in the dingy gyms in Europe, the little gyms in collegiate America, you know, recruiting me or scouting these kids. And Magic Johnson, rightfully so, is too big for that. With his other businesses, with his persona,

he's too big for that type of minutia that you have to do as a president. He should be an owner, the face, have people under him now, we can fault him for not having people under him who were going to take care of all that stuff. He wasn't close to Rob Polinca before they worked with the Lakers. No. They weren't boys.

And they weren't. And, you know, people tell you, Rob was not shy in pointing out, Magic's not here. You know, like, where's Magic today? Knowing he wasn't there and, you know, just letting people know Magic's not around. Look, I dealt with Rob Polink in the past.

My dealings have been really good with Rob. You're a smart guy. He's a smart guy. You weren't battling for the same people or space. Look, Rob was not an agent. He was a big time agent. He had Kevin Durant. He had Dwight.

He had Kobe Bryant and James Hardin. He stole players from other agents and had players stolen from him. So that's where some of the animosity with him and others and even some people in the league. You know, he had some differences with some executives. So magic. But their speculation, too, that Magic wanted Polinka out. And because of her relationship with Kobe, Jeannie was not going to allow him to get rid of Rob Polika. Oh, now that's interesting.

You can throw in the Luke thing. Like, I do think Magic was going to be given the right to fire Luke. I'm going to take him at his word on that. But look, and magic, another thing, magic has not been criticized a lot in his life, at least his professional life. And he's gotten hammered. Right. He doesn't like criticism.

Right. And the times he's gotten criticized when he coached the Lakers. He quit. And they lost 10 straight. He got out. Right. The talk show. Got out.

And then this. And so, and if I met, look, right, if I'm Magic Johnson, am I going to sit here and be criticized? And, Colin, have my basketball intelligence questioned? Now, it's right to, you know, people have. criticizing for some of the things he said. But he's looking at it like when he's talked about how we built

we didn't need shooters and we want to build playmakers around LeBron. I watched every playoff game last year and you know it was the teams with shooters that lost. People were mocking Magic for saying that. People were criticizing him and so Magic is saying

you know do I have to take this? Now the criticism was fair because I mean you do need to put shooters around LeBron But from his standpoint, he's like, I can't, you know, he can't deal with that. Okay, fork in the road time. Build it around LeBron, Tilew, David Griffin, get Anthony Davis, or Celtics moved off. Veterans got picks.

Clippers moved off Lobb City. They're in the playoffs. Warriors moved off Monta Ellis for staff. There's a fork in the road. What do you choose? I'm building. I'm all in with LeBron. Okay.

I'm all in with LeBron. That's not the wrong answer. I'm not, that's a real answer. I've got three years left. Yes. Because the notion of let's go young, in most cases, doesn't work. I can point to a few teams recently. Golden State built through the draft, went young with Steph and Clay.

Oklahoma City before they lost KD. They got KD, James Hardin, Russ, in the draft. The Philadelphia 76ers now, although they missed on a lot, Jal Okafore. Nirling. They had about four whips. Yeah, they whiffed on a lot of picks. They just happened to get two. great players in Simmons and Embed, but Sacramento.

Detroit, Detroit tried it, seven straight years in the lottery. Now we go back and get Blake Griffin, you know. Orlando, where are they at? Phoenix. We'll see what these young guys, but Sacramento, like this notion that let's just go young and in four years will be great. No, most times it doesn't work. So you've got a great player. That makes it easier that it's, look, it's going to be tough for him to get a free agent.

But if you get, even if it's just a Jimmy Butler, even if it's just a DeMarcus cousins. I don't like DeMarcus cousins. If you get Jimmy Butler, I buy your sales pitch. Okay. With LeBron, I'm now legit. You can't say, your sales pitch can't include if you get Boogie Cousins because I'm slamming the door on that sales pitch. Boogie's about to win a championship, man. Oh, no.

If your sales pitch. Now, by the way, I agree with you. You would build all in LeBron. Yes. Right. Okay. Because LeBron's still a top five. player in the league. On some nights, he's number two. Three, Janus KD. I'd still build around

LeBron. I would go all in on LeBron. That's my belief today. It does come with this caveat, though. Major injury next year, maybe I made the wrong move, but I think I'd go with it. Life doesn't come without risk. Nobody wins big. You've got to be in the game, have skin in the game, to win the game. And the risk is, oh, crap, 32nd game, LeBron is a major injury. And you're looking at Kobe at the end, you're like, this is the new reality. No, you're right. Look, Steve Nash, play what, 10 games for him or something like that? I believe the fork is I got LeBron. I think he's going to be healthy, rejuvenated, chip on his shoulder.

I'm getting an all, like I'm going to get an all-in Big Ben this year and all in Aaron Rogers this year. I'm going to get an all in LeBron James this year. Those three guys have been ripped all season. And here's the thing. If you hire David Griffin, and there's other names I could throw out, Masai, Eugenia, Toronto. Chonsie Billups. I know he hadn't done it, but he's respected. I'd rather not have famous people.

Chonsie's in that middle. He is famous. He's famous. No TV people. Michael Winger from the Clippers or Troy Weaver under Sam Presti and Oklahoma. They're grinders, career executives. Young guys, though, who you can go out and get and build this. If you drive anything better than a Toyota Celica, I'm not hiring you.

Well, here's the thing about David Griffin. Joy's just tolerating me at this point. She's not even, she's just tolerated me. I hear you don't. Look, David Griffin is not just a move to appease LeBron. No, no, no, no, he's a smart guy. He's good. No, no, my source is love David.

He's very bright. He would be good and he's strong personality, so I think he, you know, do what he'd have to do. And Ty Lou, at the end of the day, you got to get a coach in the front office that LeBron respects and that get along with him that he feels good about. That doesn't mean, you don't give him, don't let him run the franchise. Don't let him in clutch run the franchise. Okay, I'm in on LeBron,

but why can't I go find the next Nick Nurse? LeBron's smart. He wants a smart coach. You didn't want a golf and buddy. LeBron's not into that. Nothing against Ty Lou. But I mean, you can't tell me there's none of our boodin holes are out there.

I think LeBron would put his arms around a super smart guy. That's interesting because I would love to see LeBron with a guy like that. But I don't know. It wasn't like David Black didn't know basketball. David, by the way, hasn't been hired by anybody else. David. David had a swag that the players felt he didn't deserve.

Yeah, he turned a lot of people off. Right. But I like a boon-hoes or, you know, one of those young guys, but I just, at this stage of his career, I don't know if that's, I don't know if I'm going that route. And Tylo is a good coach. I think I would go with. Yeah.

I think Ty is a good coach. Yeah, I think Ty is a better coach than Luke. The question too, though, Colin, is with all due respect to Jeannie, who did a great job in the business aspect of the Lakers, she's not a basketball person. No. Who's making this decision? Well, they don't have anybody. She don't consult Kobe, who she did on Polinka, which hasn't really worked out.

Okay, so you got Chauncey Billups and Kobe for me. I don't want famous people. No, I'm not saying hire Kobe. I'm saying she's probably going to talk to Kobe about this decision. I would talk to Kobe. Who else she's talking about? call Jerry West. I think Jerry would talk to her. I don't think he'd take the job, but talk to him and get some of his advice.

But this needs to be right. It can't be the old mom and pop Lakers. Don't bring in Phil Jackson. I like Phil. I like all these people. I want them as consult. You know what I'd do? I'd call Phil and Jerry West. I'd say here's 25 grand each a month. Give me your phone number. I can call you at any time. That's what I believe. Jerry, you're rich. You live in Malibu. Well, Jerry's with the clippers now.

Well, okay, whatever I got to pay. I do think he talked to it and just give him a big believer. I'll pay you monthly. Just give me your phone number, Phil. You're on a lake in Montana. I can call you anytime I want. Right. I would rather do that than go all in.

Phil, Phil did all in. Phil's passed all in. Come on. Phil Jackson's got money and no time. Yes, yes. All right. We got to some stuff here today. Wild stuff.

It was crazy last night. I was just text blown up and on the phone. with people and talking. It was holy crow. It was great. They need to get this settled by the end of May. By the way. It gives you a month to get ready for free agents. Where's everybody talking today? Where's the leadership today? Polenko won't talk. Jeannie won't talk.

Somebody stand up and talk. I mean, you know what happens when the ship is sinking? The captain of the ship's like, I got it. I'm under control. Last guy here. Get off the ship. Okay. I got to have somebody talk today. The captain just quit. Yeah, Jeannie Bus. There better be somebody else needs to step up.

Polinka should be talking. Whoever. It should be Rob Blinken. Somebody other than a guy in a tape video room. You know, give me like a grown-up, stand up and talk. Yeah. All right. Oh, by the way, Bill Orham of the Athletic, going to join us via phone.

He's all over this thing. He's been terrific, too. Do you know, Bill? Yes. Fine job. That's a good job. Another journalist. That's all we bring on this show is journalists.

Capital J. Well, I'm a small J. He's a capital. Joy with the news. No, no, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. So, the Pelican season ended last night with a loss of the Warriors at home with Anthony Davis watching from the bench.

Aedes likely played his last game as a pelican in the fallout from his trade request, and the pelicans handling of the issue of the deadline contributed to the firing of GM Del Demps. And after the shocking resignation of magic last night, Alvin Gentry said the ordeal traces back to bad advice given to Davis. I think it's a very good kid. I think he's a solid guy. I stand it here. I don't care. I think he got some bad advice.

If you want me to just be the total truth. I'll leave it as that. But there's nothing wrong with AD. He's a good, solid guy with good character. You know, I'd like to talk to Alvin Gentry. I think I'd like to have him on the show. I think he's a straight shooter. I like straight shooters.

I think he's being totally honest there. I think the whole situation, Lakers weren't as good as they thought. Clutch sports wants to engineer a trade, too many leaks, magic not quite. That situation will go down in history as one of the biggest disasters. Ruined two teams. Ruined relationships. In trade history.

In all of sports, not just NBA. And Joy, you and I know this because we work in the media. Avoid us mostly until you have something to say. That story was, I'd never seen any. It was almost impossible to cover. It was so... Every day. The leaks were so vast and immediate.

Every day. Drafts and impactful. Like, though, we're just trading the entire team. Bye-bye. And it affected lives. Yes, it really did. And, you know, it's interesting on that. This is where I thought Magic and LeBron missed.

You know, magic came out and said, you got to deal with trade rumors. And LeBron's got, hey, you get traded. Yeah, you two don't. When you're the rich, powerful guy in the room, you don't understand what the minimum wage guys thinking these young players freaky them. Especially considering the fact that magic just quits, it seems a bit disingenuous to say

you got to man up and be big boys and you're going to walk away from your very big boy job whenever you feel like it. 22 year olds get freaked out. Anyone gets freaked out. Anyone will get freaked out. Twenty-two or not. I would actually argue that the older the player is, the more freaked out you get

because usually 22-year-olds don't have an entire family and kids in school and you know, businesses set up. I don't think that this trade was on AD though. I get what Alvin Gentry is saying, but Anthony Davis is just trying to do the best he can for his career, and maybe it wasn't the best way to go about it, but by all accounts, he is a good guy,

and sometimes business just goes this way. So let's be honest. LeBron didn't tell anybody and surprised everybody, I'm going to Miami. He was hated. Right. Carmelo Anthony gave you six months heads up, and you hated him going Denver to New York.

Anthony Davis tried to engineer it himself. You hate him. there's no way. Kevin Durant's sending messages through the media, there's no way for a star player to leave a town. No. So when everybody's always crushing all these guys for mobility, you know, I've thought about how would I do it?

I would do it like LeBron did it in Cleveland. I would literally just say, bags packed, I'm out. Yeah, I mean, you can argue, you know, him walking away at the end of the contract. Now I was still trying to get out while he's still under contract changes things. But either way, they're going to be mad at him. So it's like, you can't make.

everyone happy. If you're not making yourself happy at the very least, what's the point? So I'll give you an example. I had conflict in my life as a child. So I don't love constant conflict. I've gone to a lot of therapy to get over it and I'm better with it now. But most of these kids are 23, 24. If you go look at their personalities and their family structure as kids, it'll probably tell you whether they're just going to bolt or they can deal with a conflict. Like LeBron did not want conflict. He hated being the villain. No, for sure. Anthony Davis is like, I'll be the villain. I mean, everybody's, every player's different. Every player's different, and you can't tell someone how to handle their life and their career.

Yeah. So, if you hadn't heard, Magic Johnson stepped down last night. Bailed. He reportedly could have fired Luke before he decided to step down. Chris Haynes reported that Jeannie Bus granted Magic permission to do so, but Walton, because Walton wouldn't bulk up his coaching staff. Oh, oh. And so that's the story that Magic instead chose to resign because, you know, Luke refused to do it.

it. I don't know that I'm buying any of these stories. I think it's more to do with what Bruce R. was just talking about the article. When Earl first told me about this, driving yesterday, and he read it on Twitter, my immediate thought was something is not adding up here. I know Magic has walked away from jobs before, and this didn't really seem like the perfect fit for Magic because all the things we've been talking about, the time. I mean, you've mentioned Magic goes on a trip to Italy with his family for a month in August every year. that's not possible when you're running the Lakers. So there was a time commitment thing.

But it feels kind of like magic may have been on the way out from up top. And instead of letting that happen, he abruptly held a press conference and got in front of it. Is that at all possible? Yeah, I think I always try to find the simplest way to communicate a story to my audience. This could have been very complex. There could be a lot of wires here. I just feel like that was my initial gut feeling on the situation. I think over time we'll find out what actually happens.

I do think there's something to do with Polinka and Magic and a relationship deteriorating there. But at the end of the day, this is why it's hard to work with family. Jeannie and Magic consider each other to be family as they should. And sometimes you don't want to work with family because you might have to fire family. And this was not the position for Magic. and hopefully they will get the right person in there. So finally, sticking with this chaos,

with magic news coming so sudden, the entire sports world eagerly awaiting LeBron's reaction. Yes. We'll have to wait. LeBron did not address the media after the game, and when reporters attempted to track him down for a comment, the Bronn's security team put some distance between himself and the reporter. I would, what would I do to be a fly on the wall

to see LeBron's reaction to this situation? Because however drastic our reaction was, I can't imagine what the players in the locker room in LeBron's. The good news is, Magic, who is not a great president of basketball operations, is no longer a president of the Lakers basketball operations. So LeBron could say, let's get a pro in there. I mean, let's look at optimistically if you're LeBron. David Griffiths, my guy, he's better at Magic at that GM president thing. I mean, at this point, just Cleveland 2.0. like Tyloo is certainly qualified to be the head coach of the Lakers

and by all accounts David Griffin and LeBron seemed to fit together so you have to make this happen fast. Okay, this is good stuff. Is that it? Joy with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping back. You know, it's funny, what Magic said when he brought LeBron in,

hey, we're not going to become the Cavaliers. And sometimes you say you're not going to become something, but you don't have a choice. Like LeBron's a basketball avalanche. Like you bring LeBron in and this is what you get. It's tough on front offices. He leaves. It's a mess.

And that's not a criticism. LeBron is so heavy and there's so much weight and so much gravitas. You bring LeBron in and you can say, listen, we're not going to bend over backwards for. LeBron's an avalanche, man, his famous and people and the coaches in it, his clutch sports and his guys and his group and his power and his name and his stardom and it's everybody walking on an in shale. It's not a criticism of LeBron. but people often say, listen, I'm not going to do this. In reality, that's what they're going to do. Okay, you bring in LeBron, it gets messy, and it gets big, and it gets noisy,

and it gets talked about and microscoped, and that's a reality of business with LeBron. Coming up next, Bill Orem checks in from the Lakers facility next. Don't go anywhere. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific. Last night, a blown call changed the game. This morning, the internet. internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting

through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kier Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing,

we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross. Because you find it important to be a good person

while you hear on earth. Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Keer Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing,

growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way. Open your free, Our Heart Radio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back.

Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levant this went to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life.

Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness. professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't.

Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel on. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ledecki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light. up and smile. That means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do

anything. I can, like, I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's sports. All right, let's not waste any time. By the way, this just out, per Ramona Shelburne, she does a great job. LeBron James was stunned to learn of Magic Johnson's decision, but despite Magic's abrupt resignation, LeBron stands behind Jeannie Bus and the organization, the source told Ramona Shelburne. With that via phone, we go to Bill Orham, Lakers writer for the Athletic, had him on a couple of weeks ago. All right, Bill, let's start with this. Let's go to the scene last night.

what did you just make of the entire scene in magic? Colin, it was just to kind of paint a picture for you. Luke Walton had just done his nightly pregame media availability. It's game number 82. It is widely thought that this is going to be his last pregame news huddle as the head coach of the Lakers. And so there was some sentimentality. You know, he kind of danced around that fact. And then he wraps up, walks in the locker room, Magic Johnson had been hovering.

And he kind of walked over and kind of seemed like he was joking, goes, when do I get to go? And then there's a beat. now I'm going to go. Dan steps behind the podium, talks about his love for Jeannie Bus and quit his job. Unlike anything I've ever seen, one of the most stunning things I've ever been on hand for. And really, I think, has to go down as one of the biggest stunners in Lakers history. I mean, you know, obviously Magic's Retirement as a player is probably number one. There was a press conference in 1981 when Pat Riley became the head coach and Jerry Buss tried to name Pat Riley and Jerry West co-coaches. And Jerry West basically in the middle of press conference and, oh, no, I'm not doing that.

But then you've got to put Magic Johnson's stunning, abrupt resignation right there near the top of that list. You know, it was, it was surreal to see him in that setting because he was so off the cuff and shooting from the hip. And speaking from the heart as well, I mean, it was hard to watch that and not feel like it was pretty genuine what he was saying about his love for Jeannie Bus, his love for the organization, the anguish he felt it was causing Jeannie to basically, be put in a position where two people she loved and cared about and believed in as stewards of the Lakers organization were kind of pitted against each other in Luke Walton and Magic Johnson. And what's crazy is we still don't know what Luke Walton's future is. We don't know if he will remain the head coach of the Lakers. And Magic stepped down seemingly falling on the sword so Jeannie could continue to move forward

with Luke. And I don't think there has been any clarity that that is going to be the case. So we haven't heard from Jeannie Buss. We haven't really heard from anybody in leadership with the Lakers. Rob Polinka is still the general manager of this team. He has not been available. He will not talk today. We are here at the Lakers facility for exit interviews.

We've heard from Mo Wagner, Josh Hart, Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, but nobody who really has any authority to tell us what is going on with this organization. Oh, boy, rudderless. So you wrote an article for the Athletic talking about LeBron's relationship with his teammates after the injury. Your quote was, he wasn't around, didn't allow him to travel the injury. He'd arrive at home games, you know, moments before tip off, once with a glass of wine in hand. This was when players started to look at James a bit differently. Do you think trading LeBron is on the table, Bill?

I don't think it is yet, but I do think that there are some factors to pay attention to. Depending on who comes in as the new president of basketball operations, I think who they hire will give you a pretty good indication of how. they view LeBron and what they are trying to accomplish with this hire. If they go out and get somebody like Pat Riley, I mean, you have to think that he's here to make it work with LeBron. If they go get somebody like David Griffin, same thing. But there are other executives out there, Michael Winger with the Clippers,

who had no trouble trading Blake Griffin and trading Tobias Harris to do what was right for the team. I think you'd have to raise an eyebrow and wonder if maybe there was a more creative approach forthcoming. But for the time being, I think the Lakers remain committed to LeBron. Jeannie Buss, we've seen kind of how she's used loyalty, both in hiring and with players. You go back to the two-year extension that she championed for Kobe Bryant while you're still recovering from the Achilles. That was a gift of a kind of a farewell tour and, you know, one final thank you.

I think that she's used what LeBron did in choosing the Lakers as a real validation of the brand and as her father's vision. So I think it would take a lot for her to sign off on trading him, frankly. but I think come next season, year two of that contract, if things are not getting better, if the Lakers do not look like a playoff team, it may require some bold thinking. And keep in mind, LeBron James does not have a no trade clause. So he is at the mercy of the Lakers organization. Now, bold thinking, creative thinking, thinking outside the box has not been a hallmark of this team, frankly. And so I'd have a hard time seeing them doing something like trading LeBron.

That is a big-time star on a team that values big-time stars above all else. But I can certainly tell you that in many NBA front offices, that would be on the table. Okay, I've only got about 45 seconds left. Bill Orham, The Athletic, subscribe, read his stuff we do. You said Pat Riley. Is that a possibility? Why not? For him, you know, there's always been an angst about the way things ended with LeBron.

obviously left the Lakers in the prime of his career. There are two circles there that I think he could close kind of in this final chapter of his career. Obviously, he has a deep relationship with Miami, has done incredible things there. But if you're Jeannie Bus, he would check two boxes. One, he has seasoned, he has shown he can do the job. He is admired.

He's a Hall of Famer. And he also does check the box of Jeannie Values, which is being a member of the Lakers family. So I don't have any, I'm not saying that is going to happen, but there is not a single phone call that Jeannie Bus should be scared to make, whether it's R.C. Buford, Sam Cresti, Bob Myers. And I think Pat Riley needs to be on that list, too. Jerry West, as well. Bill, The Athletic, Lakers Rider. Man, that was good. Bill, drinks on me. We've got to hang out or something. You come on this show and give us all sorts of information. I don't do anything. Bill, I love you. Thank you so much for giving us your time today at the Laker facility. Anytime, Colin. I'm going to need it. All right.

Aren't we all? He covers the Lakers. Does a great job. I should get a free subscription from the athletic, to be honest with you. I'm giving that so much press. A lot of people watch this show. Or you could say they provide us with such quality content. Oh, you're right.

I got selfish there for a second. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah. I like people to give me free stuff. I kind of got into my own. Everybody loves free stuff, but you know, that's how the world goes around. They give me free writing and I give them free. So we have a mutual relationship, mutual beneficial relationship.

That's a very good point. What is shoot me down. I need to sometimes you just got to support others in our business. You're right. We are, we need to support people too. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

I need somebody to hold me accountable. You here, wife at home. I have to have people hold me accountable. I just go off in a crazy train land. We flew in Rick Buecker to be on our show today. We got a great last hour. This thing is they're having excellent interviews right now. now. And we'll keep you updated. We move into Hour 3. It's The Herd. Want more Herd? The Herd streams

24 hours a day, seven days a week within the IHeart Radio app. Search Herd to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like. Ah, here we go, Hour 3. This is the Herd, live in Los Angeles. IHeart Radio, Fox Sports Radio, F.F.S. Swan. Joy Taylor is joining me. It's been a wild show. Absolutely Wild Show. We're also available on Sirius XM Channel 83. You know, I just got to say this, Joy, is that, you know, I think kids should go to college for a couple years and grow up because I don't know what I would have done without college.

It's when I grew up. I was a mess. And it made my bed, made dishes, made meals, made breakfast, made my own plans. You kind of grow up. And in basketball, if you're a great talent, high school, you're a college, off to the NBA. The kid that's been so great for the Lakers in this mess has been Kyle Kuzma,

who stayed in college for multiple years. He's been great on TV today. He understands it. He's great on social media. You know, we just want to in basketball. We want to find the talent, get them paid, and get him gone. Take a deep breath. Live a little.

Be in college. Now, you may not like the way college works. They should be paid, blah, blah, blah. I get, it's a separate issue. But the idea that college doesn't matter. This Kyle Kuzma kid, swimming in disarray all year, the whole organization. The two kids that have been grown-ups are Josh Hart stayed in college for like four years and Kyle Kuzma.

There's value to college, not just basketball, life. Well, it's just life experience. You're just usually older. And like you said, you've had more time to grow up and grow up around people who are also growing up with you as opposed to just going straight into being around a bunch of adults who have higher expectations of you. I still have zero issue with leaving college early, but there is some value to it, obviously.

A couple weeks ago, my daughter was saying, Dad, I'm stressing out, and I said to her, that's part of your education. I just don't pay for the stressing out. Stressing out. She was going, I'm stressing out, and I said, don't you sometimes wish you could stress out over a score? Yeah.

But I did tell my daughter, I said, you just start filling out your taxes, and then you really miss stress. Life is all about stress, right? How you handle it? I said that stress. It's probably the biggest thing that you learn in college about being an adult. Stress.

Yes. Test. Midterm. Get it right. Get fired. You'll be out. Lose your scholar. I mean, it's all that stuff.

Anyway, 15 minutes, Rick Buecker off a plane in the Bay Area. We flew him here this morning. He'll stop by with all the latest stuff. Well, last night was about D. Wade and Dirk, right? That's what you thought going into the night. But then Magic Johnson, Adlib, stole all the headlines when he stepped down as team president of the Lakers. So, of course, I'm starting there.

we've been saying this for weeks, actually a couple of months. People around Los Angeles say, Colin, you've turned. You're so tough on the Lakers. No, I'm not. I'm just honest. My loyalty is not to fans or teams or brands. It's to honesty. It travels with me, job to job. Being an NBA team president sounds glamorous.

A lot of jobs do. But it's a complete and utter grind, mostly in your office or traveling to Dusseldorf to find a backup point guard. Magic goes on a yacht. weeks every summer with a bunch of his buddies, does it every year. It's awesome. Wish I could, but you can't as team president. It's a grind job with a glamorous title, and Magic wasn't up for it, from day one. And I actually thought last night was perfect the way Magic resigned. It's the way he ran the Lakers, off the cuff, unprepared, rambling, making it up day to day through the media. He's beloved.

He's universally liked. He's a really, really nice guy. And today he'll get mostly a soft landing because he's magic. He's hard to not like. You can not like MJ or Kobe's intensity or LeBron's ego. A lot of stars you can not like. Magic's impossible to not like. Meet him once.

You like him. Lights up a room. But yesterday what magic did, let's be honest, it was embarrassing and it was unprofessional. and it was kind of, it was just a rambling, incoherent mess of stuff. And that's how he ran the Lakers. He didn't tell his boss, Jeannie Bus, didn't tell Rob Polinka, didn't tell LeBron, LeBron's people, didn't tell anybody, didn't tell the PR person.

They were all scrambling to catch up. Well, Colin, you know, Magic's got a lot of, he's distracted, he's got a lot. Then don't take the job. No excuses. Own it. Mirrors, they still work. Don't take the job if you're not ready to commit. I thought actually when I watched this,

it was the perfect way for Magic to resign. The way he ran the team. Just kind of rambling. Not really buttoned up. Not fully committed. Not detailed. It just felt like the same reason he didn't work as a head coach. A late night talk show host, a team president.

You've got to be fully committed. I say this about confidence. all the time. You think comedy is just fun in games. No, the best comedians. It's a serious business. Steve Harvey is writing jokes all day. Howard Stern's writing jokes the minute he gets home. Jerry Seinfeld, comedy's a serious business. A lot of businesses look like fun, maybe this one. It's a complete and utter grind. NBA president, it's not a 50-hour work week. It's not a six- it's an 80-hour work week in certain times of the year. I'm not the only one saying this, and I'm not the only one been saying it for months.

Adrian Ward Janowski. I read his tweet yesterday. He said, since taken over, Magic never fully committed to the job. Traveling away from the team. Office hours limited. Didn't do a lot of scouting. Running a team takes tremendous commitment of time and energy.

I like Magic. He's impossible not to like. But he said something yesterday during that kind of rambling, neither here nor their discourse, that was like shocking. Here it is. Did anybody see this team? everything is in place.

We add one guy and this team is in the finals, in the Western Conference finals, because we're not too far away from everybody. We're heading in the right direction. That's what I'm concerned about. If we were not, I'd probably be staying, but since I feel we're one star away and one or two role players away,

and so I'm happy, I'm happy. That's like saying I'm a nose, smaller ears, perfect skin away from being George Clooney. It ain't close, folks. Okay, this is closer to the Titanic than it is, you know, smooth sailing luxury liner. Yeah, we're just a star away. Yeah, you couldn't get an interview with Lamarcus Aldridge. You couldn't keep Dwight Howard.

Just a star away. You don't have the assets. Lonzo's not healthy. Either is Brandon Ingram. LeBron's aging's got an injury. Listen, Magic needed to step down. That part I like. His motives are fairly clear.

He wanted a Can Luke Walton and Jeannie Busted not. But this organization, and this is why I've been ripping it for two months, I'm not loyal to teams that I live in the city of. My job is not to protect the Lakers. It's to be honest about the Lakers. They don't need my protection. Okay? I got too many celebrities, too many Mercedes in the parking garage.

I want a few beat-up preludes. I want some grinders. I thought Magic actually was completely, completely honest. with the one thing he said about leaving the Lakers. Let's play this. I want to go back having fun. I want to go back being who I was before taking on this job. I was happier when I wasn't the president.

I'm not the guy who I have to watch what I say, put a muzzle on me, you know, that type of thing. I'm a free bird and I've been handcuffs and I don't like that. He's totally honest. Magic is. That's why he didn't work as a late-night talk show host. That's why he can't be a coach. That's why he can't be a team president. It's why it was a mistake hiring him.

Magic's a great guy. The Dodgers Magic is the perfect magic. He sits in the stands. He's funny. He goes on pregame shows. Everybody likes him. He connects people. I mean, like he's like a human LinkedIn.

He's like a human Facebook. I mean, he just connects people. That's what he does. Like, magic is offended if you don't come to him when you move to Los Angeles and you don't come to Magic and say, hey, can you help me? Magic's offended. He is LinkedIn. He is Facebook.

That's why he's great with a big old smile and a big warm hug. But this job's for grinders. This is a grind job. And Magic admitted it. I want to be magic. Then go be magic. We love that magic. Let's not mess with that magic.

That magic's awesome. Team President Magic never fit. And he admitted it there. Let me shift to this. Jeannie Bus now, she's the owner of the Lakers. For those who don't know, her father, the late great Jerry Bus on the Lakers, and then got some kids, Jim and Jeannie. Jeannie's always been like Operation Side, right?

Not the basketball hoop side. She hires people for that. Very well liked. A lot of energy. Universally liked. Good person. But this I don't like. after magic bailed and didn't give her a heads up she ran to Twitter and said

Irvin I love working side by side with you you've brought us a long way we will continue the journey we love you heart emoji heart emoji uh no stop no no no no that that's not the time for heart emojis I need grown up genie I need hard ass genie I need genie who fired her brother your organization is in a free fall. It's a laughing stock. The Clippers were drinking Cristol last night. They're going to the playoffs. I don't want to ever see a hard emoji until you're in the Western Conference finals.

This is the tweet I want to see from Jeannie Bus, who again, this is in her. She should have come out and said the Lakers will immediately begin the process of finding a president who's fully committed to bringing this organization. organization, another championship. Little shot at magic. He deserved it. Walked out, didn't give you heads up. It's not the time for heart emojis. Pat Riley this morning, if somebody walked down on him, not doing heart emojis. There's a time and a place for those. It wasn't after somebody bailed on your world-class organization. It was adorable. It was sweet. And it looked incredibly lightweight, and you're not. I need hard-ass, Jeannie. Walks in a room and people go, Oh, she just fired her brother.

People are a little tense. People know that you own the team. It is grown-up time. Doesn't mean you don't love Irvin. But the message last night to consumers and fans is, I still love everybody. I'd be pissed. You should be.

Your late great father would be. This is not the way you do business. You should be a little angry this morning. You should be a little defiant this morning. You should take the reins this morning and go out and find the world's best GM. Magic divorced you through Facebook. He unliked you. Didn't give you a heads up.

Magic called Jeannie his sister. Well, guess what? Sometimes sisters have to turn to brothers and say, we're cutting you off. It's time. The Lakers are in a full-fledged circling the drain crisis. The Yankees aren't. Michigan football isn't. Duke basketball, Notre Dame football.

Red Sox. Dodgers aren't. Manchester United isn't. Every big brand in the world is humming except the Lakers. Celtics are. They're fine. Guys in the building, clippers, they're rolling. They're rolling.

It's crisis. All hands on deck. I want to see some butt kicking. It's in you. I've seen it. I like it. I want more of it. Coming up, Rick Buecker right around the corner, we've flown him in. I mean, on just commercial and stuff. It's not go crazy on that. We have a budget and everything. Bukes from the Bay Area covers the NBA. He's down here today. His thoughts on what happened. One of the first to suggest, a LeBron trade's not out of the question. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd, Weekdays and noon Easter. 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1, and the IHeart Radio app.

Might not be able to get a new car with your tax refund, but you could get a car that looks brand new. Come into Mako, M-A-A-A-C-O, get your dream, paint job during their tax season, sales event, Rick Buecker, Senior Writer, Bleacher, Report, Podcast, Buker and Friends covering the NBA since the early 90s and somebody I listen to regularly and trust. It is great to fly you in commercially, of course. Okay. All right, Bukes, you were on the show earlier this week and it was last week, excuse me, and maybe it was earlier this week, weeks getting lost. Okay, first of all, the response on your phone from executives around the league on what

magic did yesterday, what are people texting you around the league? Holy Mother Mary, what is going on with that franchise? Shocked, surprise, or not? Absolutely. Look, there wasn't a whole lot of respect or admiration for what. magic was doing or had done. They thought it was a bit of a train wreck long before this. But that he would pull the rip cord the way that he did caught everybody off guard. They weren't expecting it. They didn't think it was going anywhere, but they just didn't think that he would

do it the way that he did it. And I, in reflecting on it and looking at magic, we shouldn't have been that shocked because he's done this before. Right, bailed. When he was a head coach, he suddenly realized a couple weeks into the job, oh, I'm not very good at this. I'm not going to have success. I need to get out. When he had a talk show, oh, this isn't, boy, this is a lot different. I can't just be magic.

He's really good at being magic. Yeah. And as a result, he gets a lot of opportunities to do things, but being magic is not enough in those jobs. Now, what about he and Polinka yesterday? Greg, I'm not sure if we have the bite ready, but he talked about backstabbing with Rob Polinka. It feels like he and Polinka, they weren't boys before this job. No, it was a weird pairing other than the connection through Kobe with Rob being Kobe's agent. That was the only connection they had.

But as a working relationship, there was none. And I can understand where there was sort of a battle for who's going to control this. And especially because Rob was supposed to be the guy that was going to be doing all of the legwork. And Magic was going to be the frontman. But I think Rob wanted to establish, hey, I'm not just a worker bee here. I'm a legitimate GM. And so my understanding in getting LeBron here was that LeBron went to meet with him and he brought John Travolta along. Rob wasn't even in that meeting

And it was to me That's the telltale thing of why LeBron was here And how they were selling them John Travolta and Magic We're gonna give you we're gonna give you the keys to the Hollywood kingdom We're gonna give you the pathway into what you want to do from that front And then but when they had when they put out the picture of LeBron actually signing

It was Rob and LeBron in the photo So there was from the very beginning there was a battle in terms of of who's going to get the credit for where this franchise goes. Let's play the tape of magic about the backstabbing to give it some context on Rob Polinka. What I didn't like is the backstabbing and the whisper. And I don't like that. You know, I don't like a lot of things that went on that didn't have to go on. What backstabbing and his friend are you talking about?

Well, you know, it's a lot of that going on in this whole world of professional basketball. lot of that goes on. And so that's all I'm going to leave it at that. Polinka does for the people that don't follow the NBA regularly, he's the Roblo look-alike, played for the Fab Five, agent, lawyer, very smart guy, kind of works his own villain highway, some say. But he's not alone. I mean, it is the nature of the NBA in that people are always trying to undercut other people. There's always, there's a line by GMs. There are, everybody's always trying to trade everybody else's players, knowing that it's going to create division.

It's going to cause problems within those teams. Or I'm sure Magic heard all of the criticism, and there was a healthy amount of it about what he was and wasn't doing from other GMs and other executives and other teams. And Magic's not used to being anything other than a beloved and respected figure. And I think that's why he bailed. Polinka have a shot to get the job.

I can't see that. Okay. So that would be earlier Bill Orum throughout Pat Riley. Pat Riley's still got a place here. He does, but my understanding was Riley's on the verge of riding off into the sunset with Miami. Okay, because I just want to throw this out there. A year ago, I was at the McGregor Mayweather fight, and I was in a big hoity-to-to-y suite with a bunch of Jamie Fox and all these guys. Joy, this is how he rolls.

Hey, no, it's how I roll. No, it's a, hey, it's great for the show. I drove up in my youth play play. fabulous life. So I drove up my U's prelude and there's like a bunch of big stars there and Pat Riley came up to me. He looked fantastic. My takeaway was

God, if I could look like Pat Riley he didn't look like a guy that wants to retire to me. If I look like that whatever age he is, I don't know. I think Pat Riley's got some life in him. Well, he might but for where the, and I heard this in context with the Miami Heat.

To get the Miami Heat back to where because Pat wants to play for championship. He doesn't want to just do the job. He wants to have a chance at winning at all. And I don't know that he would see this job as getting him any closer to that than that one. Yep, bingo. In fact, I'd say the opposite, because at least they have the coach. Yes.

And do you think Luke Walton, let's segue to that, does he survive? For now, for sure. And it just kind of depends on who comes in. I mean, look, I've heard a number of names. I've heard Jerry West's name, okay? And I could see, first of all, I can't let that go because the idea of Steve Balmer and Jeannie Bus fighting over Jerry West just makes me tingle the idea of that. And I could see the attraction there. I know people are going to say, you know, Jerry's up there, but his son, Ryan, is already in the organization, director of personnel.

For the Lakers. If you could pitch Jerry on the idea that we're going to create a succession plan where you come in and, Ryan, and, Ryan, Ryan's going to move up the chain and you're going to get the opportunity to sort of groom him to be the future of this. It makes sense on both fronts. And I know Jerry may be old, but Jerry is still connected. And Jerry knows what the job entails. That was the biggest problem with Magic and Rob. You're bringing two people in who don't even know what the job description is.

They don't know what it entails. They know it from other sides of the equation, but they don't know it from the inside. Jerry knows that. And he also, he's the one guy who can. sit down that I can think of who can sit down with LeBron other than Pat who can sit down with LeBron and he's going to have an immediate level of respect. I don't know any other, I mean, David Griffin because of their experience, but anybody who hasn't worked with LeBron before, I don't know anybody else who carries that sitting down at the table. To me, there is a fork in the road.

We've all had that in our career. Yeah. Go all in on LeBron now. hire Tyloo, David Griffin, Anthony Davis. Or Celtics. Get a bunch of picks from Brooklyn. Clippers, break up Lob City, go Steph over Montailles. Feels like a fork in the road. It's an illusion. There is no fork in the road.

You're married to LeBron James. Because the reality is, in talking to people around the league, you're not going to get enough for LeBron. If you decided to move him, you're not going to get enough that's going to give you that package to rebuild off of. And the other thing that you're sending to all the players around the league, this is one other thing Magic did, probably the beginning of the end for Magic before we even knew it,

when he criticized DeAngelo Russell, when he said, I need leaders, he's not a leader. Players may have agreed with that on some level, but players protect players. If you talk about a player a certain way, all the other players go, oh, well, what's you going to say about me? You're sending the absolute wrong message. He damaged himself and his ability to work on the free agent market

with just the way he handled that. Because Magic didn't have any standing to be able to say that. I mean, as a player, as a former player, yes. But in that GM position, players don't take kindly to that. So he lost them ultimately there. and that was the first step in the wrong direction. But here's the illusion that you can move on from LeBron, like you would get this cachet of things

and you can rebuild and go in another direction. You need to make the most out of what you can with LeBron while you can. Because if you kick him to the curb after anointing him, after all of that, and he's the face of the league, every other free agent, our great player is going to go, well, they can do that to LeBron. Bron when things go a little sideways because he got hurt midway through the season and decided, well, we're just going to tear this up and go in another direction, then they're capable of

doing that with me too. What does it say to you that no authority figure today has spoken for the Lakers? They don't have one, and they have no idea what to say at this point. They don't have a plan. I mean, this is how unaware they were caught by magic doing this. And I believe that magic essentially got out while the one thing he did for him is he didn't delay the inevitable. Because I think we all saw. They weren't chances of them getting anybody this summer.

Not good. You could have done this in the fall. You could have done this midway through next season. This was going to happen at some point. The one benefit he gave them was he did it. He just, he could have done it. That he did it is not the problem. It's how he did it.

without alerting anybody, without having, you know, creating an off-ramp, he just pulled the rip-cord. The plane is going down, and he just grabbed the parachute and jumped, instead of like, hey, guys, the plane is going down. Sometimes we create damage for others that we don't see in the moment. Did magic rambling, unscheduled press conference make the Lakers? look so lost that it will hurt landing Kyrie, Anthony Davis, Jimmy Butler. The message the league is, this is a circus. For sure, for sure. I mean, it may hurt them for anybody who's looking at coming in and taking the job.

Never mind the players. I mean, that getting the players is part two. Part one is someone who's going to begin to explore who can we get and to make that contact. They're going to look, I mean, every player. every player's agent is going to look at this franchise and go, wait a minute, what are we getting into? What are our other options? Three months, who signs with the Lakers? Or is traded by the Lakers? Well, I don't, I don't see, first of all, the Anthony Davis thing, I just, I don't see happening.

They don't have the assets. They don't have the assets. New Orleans doesn't have the desire. They're now, they've, they've dug in. Like, we don't want to give the Lakers or Anthony Davis for that matter. We don't want to give them the satisfaction of getting what they want. We'll make a deal with someone else, even if it's a lesser deal. So there's that. And then when it comes to the free agents, look, we talked about it. Kauai's not coming here. KD.'s not coming here. Clay. Clay's not coming here. Jimmy Butler. Jimmy Butler's not coming here. Now, well, he's not. I've heard other things that are first. Now, Jimmy, It just depends on if Jimmy wants the max.

I mean, that's where, this is, this is how it happens. This is what happens the last time, the summer of LeBron. 2010, you had the New York Knicks and the Chicago Bulls and they're all going after LeBron and Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosch. Oh, we can't get them. We got all this money to spend. Okay, let's get Amaristadamire. Let's get Carlos Buzer.

I think the Lakers, Rick, I think they're desperate, desperate people overpay. They'll get, they're going to give Jimmy Butler the Max. And that may get him here, but does that, You have LeBron James and Jimmy Butler. I would say this. I think LeBron plays with Jimmy better than with a big. I don't buy the bigs. Well, I'll give you that.

I'll give you that. I've heard KD. and Jimmy Butler have talked. I've heard the conversations with the national team. What do you mean? Come here? No, no, no, no. New York. Okay.

No, I'm not, Jimmy Butler can play. He's got some, he's combustible. But I'll just give you my, you know, dime store opinion. LeBron works with shooters. He doesn't work. He marginalized Chris Blanche. And defenders. Yeah, because he doesn't want to defend anymore.

Jimmy can defend. Jimmy can make buckets. This boogie cousin stuff, it's like... That doesn't make a lot of sense. No. Let me see if I didn't ask you something. Hold on. Okay.

I think I pretty much asked everything. Do you have anything you like to add to the conversation? Yeah, but we have to save... I'm going to be here tomorrow, I think. Oh, okay. That's good. All right. We have plenty more to get to.

All right. There's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of unpacking. there. And I had to, I've thought of you last night. I thought of myself. I thought everybody in our business. When this first broke, I was like, I was on the phone. How good is this? My son

literally, Dad wins dinner. And I'm like, I just became an NBA beat reporter. I literally eat a Pop-Tart. I'm on the phone for 90 minutes. Yeah. No, I had the same thing. The text message is flying. It's fun. Rick Buecker. Great stuff. Drive with the News.

No. No. No. Turn on the news. This is the Herd Line News. Madness is over. It's just kind of that dead week at the end of the season. It was supposed to be just all about the legends last night. Well, I guess it was all about the legends last night. Yeah, we had some good. Actually, it was a night of all sorts of emotions.

Yes, it was, it was. And started with you being emotional on the show yesterday. I cried yesterday briefly. This was a nice moment. It was. So Wade County said goodbye to that legend last night. Flash at his final home game last night. We'll play his very last NBA game tonight.

Let's watch D. Wade say goodbye with 305. That was tragic. Let's try it again. Let's do it this way. All right. As simple as this, Wade County. I love you. Very iconic moment for not just Miami history, NBA history last night.

Wade had a little trouble getting up on the table. He tweeted, I've played 71 games this year so far and missed seven because of the birth of my daughter, but I've played that many games and I haven't hurt my knee like I did. trying to get up on the scorers table. So awkward. That's another reminder. It's time to retire. Yeah, he made a little joke of it, though.

But it was a really nice night. Great career. Obviously, a Hall of Famer. I mean, very few NBA teams. You say Dr. Jay, I think Philadelphia. I mean, you say Kobe, I think Lakers. You say Shaq, I think a bunch of stuff. You say Dee Wade.

I think of Miami. It's a Jeter Yankee thing. He is connected, embedded forever. He'll have a statue outside of the American Airlines arena for sure. So sticking with last. Last night, another legend retire after a lot of speculation. Dirk had officially said he was going to retire this year, but he is. Let's watch his announcement after the Mab's home finale.

As you guys might expect, this was my last home game. Yeah. I'm trying my yoga breathing, but it's not really working that well. But this is obviously super, super emotional. Yoga breathing does help you. You know what I heard that, I think I read it this morning that Mark Cuban's crying there, that he did not want to announce it was his last year because he didn't want to go into arenas and have this soap opera. He kind of just wanted to, hey, told Mark Cuban, okay, this is the last game I'm going to play.

You know, some guys like the farewell tour. Yeah. And Dirk was like. That's, you know, that's kind of part of who Dirk is. You know, he's just kind of unassuming. And even in his speech, he's very humble. And not that there's anything wrong with being. and it's the other way either.

But it was a really special night for NBA fans. And it just feels like it's the whole era. The league is shifting. We've had a Garnett, a Kobe, a Dirk, a Wade, a Nash. We've had like these. And we're having serious conversations about how LeBron's career is going to evolve coming towards the end of it also. Finally, Russell Wilson recently gave the Seahawks in April 15 deadline to get a new deal done,

which is led to some speculation and some trade rumors. and Jack Doe Rio appeared on NFL Network this week and poured gasoline on those rumors. He said, don't be surprised. Before it's all said and done when we line up for the season next year, Russell Wilson isn't quarterbacking somewhere else

and the Seahawks haven't gone and gotten a quarterback that they think for the future. So there is a rumor out there about a three-way trade between the Giants, Cardinals, and Seahawks. What rumor? What does that mean? I mean, it's just like a speculation

that that may be something that could happen. A certain prominent, renowned radio performer. A very emotional, very in touch with his emotions. Didn't I talk about this six weeks ago and was mocked by America? You did. And I got to be honest with you, I did not take it seriously. Because it doesn't make any sense.

What are you doing? I'll throw this out there. Jack Dale Rio is a defensive guy. Pete Carroll's a defensive guy. He doesn't want to spend $34 million in the quarterback. because that's going to limit what Pete can do with his defensive personnel. You know what's so much worse than spending $34 million on a quarterback? Not.

Not spending $34 million on a quarterback. Like, what do you mean you do? For who? I still think, I honestly believe, well, I know this. I'm going to say this, this is not like gossip. Russell Wilson wants to let it be known. He married a strong woman with a strong supportive point of view. Now's my time.

Okay. You give me bad old lines. You give me bad running games. And I led the NFL in touchdown. And you pay defensive guys. And people have taken shots at me. Boy, she does the most beautiful human on the planet. Yeah, she's done.

Anyway, the point being, let's get back to focusing here. The point being is Russell has become a stronger personality since marriage. And he wants to put a stamp on it. My franchise. He deserves it. He deserves it. I know Russell, you know, he gets shot at a lot. but this is, he deserves it.

Does he not? Who are they going to replace him with? Hey, listen, my sister didn't like football until he arrived in Seattle. This guy is, first of all, I think he's the most underrated player in the league. But he is underrated. I can't even, you can't put those two together on a screen. You're existing focus. Well, how do you?

They look like when you go into Macy's and they have those pictures of beautiful people. And the picture frame? They look like guilty about changing the picture frame. Look at that. That doesn't even look like regular people. I don't, well, the Seahawks look a lot worse in general. I mean, come on.

I mean, those are Macy's wallet picture people. Okay, are we done here? Lord. Okay, enjoy with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Herd Lye News.

Coming up next, Magic's fairly tragic timeline as president of the Lakers, that's coming up. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd. in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific. By the way, we do it every day at this time. We thought we'd take a look back at Magic Johnson's two years, actually less than that, of running the Lakers.

There was a lot of activity, a lot of it not great, but to give you some sense, maybe why he stepped down, he just came to the conclusion that I'm not great at this. I don't have the time for this, best for last. After almost three hours, Colin apparently hasn't gotten to the point yet. Quit holding out on us, cowherd. It's the best for last.

The timeline, February 21st, 2017, Magic Johnson is hired as the Lakers president of basketball operations. Same day he trades Lou Williams, their leading score to the Rockets. Lou signs with the Clippers eventually. He's averaged 20 a game, one of the best shooters in the league, in a shooter's league. March 7th, he hires Rob Polinka. no front office experience, they end up not getting along. April 20th, same year, tampering for the first time. Goes on Jimmy Kimmel, speaks about Paul George, Lakers find half a million dollars.

June 20th, the summer, same year, trades away DeAngelo Russell, a former number two pick. He made the All-Star team this year and is a candidate to be the most improved player in the year. couple days later he drafts Lonzo number two pick over Jason Tatum de Aaron Fox and Donovan Mitchell who were all better at this point and healthier than Lonzo Ball one day later at a press conference magic calls him jersey in the rafters guy keys the Lonzo overhypes him July 1st a week later the thunder acquire Paul George the Lakers didn't go after him because they thought they would get him in free agency the next summer. That, many believe, was a signal the magic thing wasn't working.

Then October, we move into the fall, 2017. Magic goes in a pregame show ahead of the World Series, tampering with LeBron. Here it is. What are they going to take to bring LeBron to the lake? I'm going to be in trouble. I'm going to be in trouble. But you know what? We're trying to build a championship team with the Lakers,

and hopefully next summer we'll be in line to sign free agents. By the way, we move to the next year, January 2018, tampering again, talking Janice of the Bucks, find 50 grand, June 26. Magic said he would step down if he couldn't deliver free agents. Magic would land LeBron the following week, without question, the highlight of his tenure, though Jerry West said big deal, LeBron was already coming here. July of last year, Lakers don't retain Brooke Lopez or Julius Randall.

They want cap space flexibility. That is understandable. Brooke Lopez, by the way, career highs in three-point shooting on Milwaukee. Julius Randall has found a three-point shot. July 1st of last year, Lakers don't get a meeting with Paul George. He signs an extension with Oklahoma City. No meeting. Kids from L.A.

Bad miss. July 2018. Lakers signed what everybody called the meme team. Instead of getting shooters where LeBron has historically worked well with all of them, they get playmakers like Rondo, Stevenson, Javail, and Beasley, who are not elite shooters. Lakers don't get Kauai. Rumors begin. He'll go to the Clippers.

The Luke Walton Magic problems off to a slow start. Magic and Luke had a meeting. Magic told Luke to shut the F up. Then January of this year, tampering again. This time Magic talked about wanting to work with Ben Simmons. 76ers GM Elton Brand said he wouldn't allow it. Then probably, outside of not getting a meeting with Paul George, It's the biggest mess.

Joy and I have talked about this. January of this year, the Anthony Davis trade that never happened, blew up the Pelicans, completely dissolved player chemistry inside the Lakers. Del Demps got fired. Magic lost the room. Then they trade in February, Zubotch, their excellent young center, acquired Mike Muscala, who's averaging under six points a game. March of this year, Magic and Luke stopped talking, have not spoken reportedly in three weeks.

And yesterday, Magic Johnson steps down. Outside of that landing LeBron thing, a lot of missteps. I'm not here to pick on Magic. I don't think he was ever designed for this job, especially at this point in his life. If Magic would have chose basketball management instead of playing it 30 years ago, he'd be great at this. It's very hard to go from being a successful businessman who can hop on a flight to an island whenever you feel like it and not have to be in smelly gyms and recruiting and studying film and all of the stuff that goes into his position. It's very hard to be out of that grind for that long and step back in it and be successful for anyone.

The old Marvin Hagler, the great boxing line, hard to get up for a workout at 4 in the morning when you're sleeping on silk sheets. The punches hurt a lot more. They certainly do. They really do. I mean, if I don't have my cantaloupe every morning, just oatmeal will not do, Joy. MDrive is a supplement I use every day. Stronger, more energy.

Go to mDrive for men.com today. Refind your prime with MDrive, front to back, beginning to end. I want to thank Joy and John and Greg and everybody else, all our producers today for lining everybody up, Bill Orham. Chris Broussard, Rick Buecker, Nick Wright. Thanks, everybody. Speak for yourself right around the corner.

In L.A. It's the hurt. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where sports slice comes in. I'm Timbo. In every episode, we're cutting through the noise,

breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to SportsSlic. On the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on. A Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud.

What? How long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports.

This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed Human.