The Ringer NBA Show - Magic Johnson Stepped Down and the Lakers Are (Further) Off the Rails | The Ringer NBA Show

Episode Date: April 10, 2019

Magic Johnson resigning put the finishing touches on an NBA season that was filled with an absurd amount of drama. What does this mean for members of the Lakers franchise—including Rob Pelinka, Jeanie Buss, and LeBron James—and have we reached Peak NBA Reality TV yet? Hosts: Chris Ryan, Justin Verrier, Paolo Uggetti, Haley O’Shaughnessy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Season 8 of Game of Thrones begins this Sunday, which means binge mode Game of Thrones makes its long-awaited return, with your resident experts Mallory Rubin and Jason Concepcion guiding you through each episode. And to get your fix every Sunday night, Chris Ryan joins Mallory and Jason on Talk the Thrones, a Twitter after show recapping each episode throughout the season. So make sure you check out the binge mode podcast on Apple or Spotify, talk the Thrones on Twitter, and for even more Thrones coverage, you can head to the ringer.com. Basketball is very good.

The Wizards underpaid John Wall. AD should resign with the Pelicans. The Nets actually won the Celtics trade. Basketball is very good. Hello, and welcome to a quasi-emergency Ringer NBA show. My name is Chris Ryan. I am joined by the group chat crew, even though I guess this is officially not necessarily. not necessarily a group chat.

Justin Varyer. Hi. Haley O'Shaughnessy. Hello. Paula Getty. What's up? We're talking about Magic Johnson, who stepped down from his position as Lakers president last night

prior to the Lakers' final regular season game against the Portland Trailblazers. It brings to the end an absolutely lurid year in the NBA, where every time you thought something could get weirder, Every time you thought, I've never seen this before. I've never seen these kinds of like developments happen in a season. You were just like, the list of things that were crazy about the season is longer than the list of things that were awesome. Remember when people used to go to Los Angeles to like help their brand to become superstars? I know.

And now it just. And now it's Vanderpump. Right. Yeah. Which one is magic? I don't actually watch the show. Magic probably is like on like, stop. or Kristen levels now. I don't know. You're the only man.

You're the only one. Anyway. This is why we kicked out of the church at the first place. Let's get serious, though. Last night, before the final game, Magic Johnson calls a press conference. And you were there, Pallas. So feel free to interject as a man on the scene. So if I can give you the scene, basically what

happened is Luke Walton does this pregame press conference. Bill Walton is there. He's, like, very emotional. They're, like, taking pictures. It feels like it's going to be Luke Wallen's last game as a Laker coach. That's already weird. That's already weird. father was there. I guess because he's going to do

the Clippers broadcast tomorrow. Did they say why they're emotional? They weren't emotional percent, but he was going around kind of being like, oh, I'm very proud of Luke and whatnot. It just felt like, all right, like this is,

they're all understanding that this is probably it. His son is graduating. Exactly. He's a senior and he's going off to the sunset. Yeah. So Luke gets done,

makes a joke about how he doesn't feel anxiety about his job now, but he said, call me like later night and we'll see. Then he walks into the locker room and Magic,

who had been already in the tunnel just outside the door with Palinka, with Polinka, sort of walks in and it's like, all right, is it my turn now? Kind of jokingly. And then Lakers' PR people are like, what?

What's happening? They were visibly like what's happening? Yeah, they were legitimately like shocked. They were like, at first they thought he was joking. And he kind of stumbled in and was like, well, Bill is here, Bill Plasky. He's like, so I got to do a press conference. And he just is like, I have to talk.

And then he walks, he's like, all right, I'm going to go. And then suddenly everybody's like, scrambling back to where the scrum was and he just starts going and he's basically that's when he's like I'm gonna step down as president it was just literally like it felt like he made the decision on the spot and given everything he said afterward I don't even know if like that could be ruled out yeah I mean it does sound like there was a degree of on the spot improvisatory like I'm I'm making this up as I go along stuff and the central theme of what he said, the reason behind him stepping down was because he was no longer having fun. Now, Haley, as you're seeing this unfold, like, what are the things that are popping into your head?

Like, what's the first thing? Like, I mean, honestly, I texted Paolo. He put in our Slack. What was the first thing you put in? Magic Stepping Down. Yeah, I think he just said, like, he's just called in, impromptu, like, press conference.

You put a couple of things in the Slack. And I, I texted you like, how do you know this? Where are you seeing this? I told you this. What's going on? And, like, I knew you were at the game. I thought surely there was no way unprompted that he would just go up there and resign.

You know who agreed with you? Jeannie Bus. Because he did not tell Jeannie Bus or Luke Walton or apparently Rob Polinka. He did not inform anyone before he informed the media. He went straight to the media, told them that he was leaving the Lakers, quote, this time for good. Quote, I want to go back to having fun. I want to go back to being who I was before taking on this job. job. And he talked a lot about the stresses of the job and what he didn't, didn't like about it.

He said the fines and the tampering and the this and the that, I can't help young men who want me to help them or I can't tweet out like Russell Westbrook. That was a great feat the other day. I couldn't even tweet it out to say, hey, congratulations. I don't actually know that that's true. No, that's not true. He's totally welcome to be like, yeah. Tons of people are like, man, congratulations to Russ. You're a real one. But I will say that because of his history, tampering, like, I'm sure that the responses he would have gotten, even in his mentions or whatever. I'm sure he was actually, I'm not

sure. I would imagine he was told by someone stopped tweeting about other players, just for the sake of, like, of sanity, just stop doing it. He also, he went on to say that one of the main reasons why he was stepping down was because he was going to be forced to make a decision about

Luke Walton's future in the coming hours, that Jeannie Bus had given him the decision making power for basketball operations since he's the president of the team that kind of makes sense. And that in the next couple of hours, he was going to have to make a decision about Luke Walton. And he said, but you know, it was going to be tough for her because she loves him, loves me. And I was already saying, you know what, really, Irvin, are you happy? So when I decided I wasn't, I didn't want to put her in a position like this. And so this was the right move to make,

and I've never been so relieved. And the chaos that sounds like it was happening there, Rondo actually said after the game that for a second he thought LeBron had retired. Now, let's just... The fact that that's in play, the fact that that crossed another player's mind, I think tells you everything you need to know about the Lakers this season.

That LeBron could retire, and Rondo was like, did LeBron retire? Now I'm not saying, like, LeBron's considered retirement. I'm just saying, like, that would be in the realm of possibility. Of things that were possible. And yet, like, magic step.

And then was not. There was a great deal of frenzy from what it sounds like. And so for it to be that high, it'd have to be something truly crazy. Sure. Sure. I also want to say that the end of his quote, I didn't want to put her in a position like this talking about Jeannie. You didn't tell her. Yeah.

Which continues the unprecedented unprofessionalism that he's had all season. It was wild because everybody kept asking him sort of a version of the same question of like, wait, so you have not told Jeannie. And he kept saying no, but like nobody really could believe that he hadn't even said anything to her. He's like, I woke up this morning, I like prayed about it and I got my decision in. And I just, he's like, I walked, I came here and I didn't tell anybody because I didn't want to getting out, basically. Bill talked about this with Manix last night. It's not a big deal that he's stepping down. That was somewhat, it wasn't expected that he was going to do that.

But it was expected that there would be changes of the Lakers. The big deal is that he did it in this sort of off-a-cuff way. Right. And as you alluded to, it just didn't seem like. like he wanted to do the job. Like he had every option available to him. He was empowered to do whatever he wanted with the Lakers

but his decision was to not make any decision at all. And it all seemed to come back to this idea that he just doesn't enjoy being not liked. Like his primary motivation for doing a lot of things is just to be liked. And I think this press conference really kind of was emblematic of that whole idea

because he just wanted to make a big splash. He wanted to go out on his terms. He kind of wanted to ride off into the sunset. So the point, as Paolo was mentioning on Twitter and elsewhere, he just kind of lingered for 40 minutes to an hour after he initially dropped that bomb. Yeah. No, so he does the press conference which just goes on for about 30 to 40 minutes.

Then he starts walking slowly through like everybody. It was legitimately like the scene that you saw at the Mavs game where Dirk is like saying bye and like to all the the arena workers. Like he started saying like bye to everybody as if he was never going to come back to Stable Center again, started hugging for. people taking pictures and whatnot. And then just sort of like looking around like,

I can find Jeannie. I don't think he's going to be in Staples Center for a while. That's true. But he was just like, oh, like I got to find Jeannie. Like where's Jeannie? Like to everybody as if he was just like still in press conference mode, which he was. Then he had like another impromptu press conference like near the exit. And I thought something that was interesting that he said there is that he like really like his eyes lit up when he was talking about what he liked about the job.

And he's like, I love like the free agency stuff. Like, I love closing the deals. Like, I can do that. He's like, an article was, like, he's like, nothing is going to stop me from, like, being good at that or whatever. But, like, it's interesting to me that he liked that aspect of the job, but, like, clearly didn't like any of the other stuff.

He mentioned backstabbing, which he wasn't specific about, but he mentioned that, which I thought was interesting. It seemed like he just wanted to be an ambassador. Like, yeah. You went to Atlanta and you talked to Dominique Wilkins. He has effectively, for an office title. Right. I don't think he actually does anything.

He's just kind of, he's a face you put on posters or maybe you tried him out there. He calls games. That's really what Magic wanted. But it goes back to Jeannie here by not giving him that job just kind of someone like just basically a mascot position and actually empowering to make actual decisions. Ultimately, I think it falls on her for not being able to like differentiate between the two, like what he is capable of doing. Well, I think that he was supposed to be Jerry West in this case. I think he was supposed to be not only a figure of incredible significance in the league and for the franchise. And then he was supposed to change the culture of the team and make it take it back to its championship roots.

Ideally, that's what Magic does. And then Polinka dots all the eyes and crosses the T's. And it was telling that one of the only people he was not particularly affectionate about, I thought he was more affectionate about Luke Walton in last night's press conference than he was about Polinka. He was asked whether or not he thought Rob Polanco should stay on for the GM job and you could say he was being professional

by being like, it's genius decision but since everything else about the press conference was unprofessional, it was rather telling that he was like, that's genius decision. He was very honest about everything else but he decided to sort of take a roundabout answer to that. Which is so crazy to me because like

they walked into the arena together. They were like saying hi to people together Robin Magic. And then he goes off and does that and then you never saw Polenko. like Palinka was gone. His seat, I know where he sits and he was gone.

He wasn't even there. I was going to ask if anyone came in during the press conference from the Lakers organization other than the PR people. I mean, when everybody realized

what was happening, everybody was coming and like the TV announcers, like other workers from Rachel. Yeah, Nichols. Just like everybody was just swarmed the area

outside of the Lakers locker room and then granted, this is still during pre-game warm-up. So players are sort of like going in and out of the locker room sort of seeing what kind of not realizing what was happening.

I think some of the assistant coaches were also there and they saw it was happening and were kind of shocked. So it was just like a weird, it was weird overall scene. It starts to talk a little bit spinning forward. So the day after, the days after, the weeks after the months after, like what do the Lakers need to do now? Because I think there's going to be obviously a lot more questions. First of all, how does LeBron feel about this?

Which is essentially what we're seeing is the ramifications of the Lakers going all in on this blockbuster trade they tried to pull off at the trade deadline. And it literally exploded the team. I don't see why LeBron wouldn't have any reason to be... I don't want to say happy about this, but I think that they saw that not only Magic and Polenko weren't qualified to negotiate and pull off trades and pull off in free agency what they all said that they were capable of,

but also that they kind of might have burned some bridges, along the way, especially with the Davis thing. And when the face of the front office changes, maybe also the perception of how willing people are to trade with them does. I guess the question is, is it actually going to change or is it just going to be magic stepping down? Because I think that's one of the questions that needs to be answered still. And Laker's exit interviews were today,

and, you know, LeBron, Polinka and Jeannie did not talk. And basically, what if this causes Jeannie to sort of go toward Polinka and like double down on him instead of like actually going out of. to look for a better candidate. I think then we'll see like how big of a mistake she's... You know how she's really

kind of steered this in the wrong direction. I think you give her this the magic tenure and even hiring Palinka as kind of like the fool me wants. But then if you keep going

with Polinka after everything you've seen this year, then... Fool me twice. Shame on me. Yeah, right. Yeah, I ultimately think this is what they should have done a long time ago.

They never should have hired Magic. They probably never should have hired Rob because as we're seeing, they're like practical, like job responsibilities that someone needs to be able to do. Right. Like neither of these guys had front office experience and you're expecting them to execute

these really technical like trades and all these other maneuvers. And we've seen, I mean, the Anthony Davis example was the primary example there that it's just not as easy as saying, we want this guy, we'll give you everyone and just give us that guy. So I think this is,

they're on the, right path. But the problem is they've kind of set up their organization to be kind of this overpowering, big swinging dick sort of thing where it's just like, we're going to sign this guy. And we're just going to go out in free agency and get you another teammate LeBron. And so I don't know how they walk the line now because the type of things that they need to do to surround LeBron with like the right people, it seems like it's going to be way more complicated than that past. It's all screwed up. It's all screwed up because if anything, what we saw this year was a little bit of LeBron's career mortality.

He missed a significant amount of time. He came back. He wasn't healthy. They sucked when he came back. He's got Brandon Ingram with some unknown ramifications from this shoulder issue he's got. Lonzo hasn't been able to really stay on the floor that much. Lonzo is a wild card when it comes to whether or not he'll show up at the whatever place

he gets traded to. That was one of the issues I think. And not among many in the New Orleans talks was whether or not Lonzo was going to be. part of that deal. And then you have this thing where the very thing that I think the people are drawn to about the Lakers, which is this idea that there's this extended family of a team

that you've got guys like Michael Thompson and James Worthy and Magic Johnson and Kurt Rambus and they're all kind of still around and A.C. Green was there last night. There are all these sort of vestiges of teams past and you've got Kobe kind of looming in there.

And Jeannie is the next in line of a long history of the bus family running this team, that doesn't mean, that ultimately means you can't control everything. And so if you're, I've seen already, like people are saying, well, Jeannie needs to correct this by breaking the bank, because the one thing there's no salary cap on is what you pay front office and coaches. So she just basically needs to go to Bob Myers or Masay Ujiri or Sam Presti or R.C. Beaufort and be like, name the price. Name the price and write your own contract. Which makes sense because the Lakers do rake in money. Now, the only other

problem with that is, though, the Lakers are essentially a family business. Like, we think of them as just like this giant conglomerate, but it really is the bus family's only business. Yep. Right. And so, I mean, the suspicion was when they brought back Kobe, like, part of it was just because, like, he was such a money driver. Yeah. So you do wonder, like, how much money they actually have just in liquid and that he can't actually go out and spend on some of these people to really just change things. They also really revel in that. Even while Magic was stepping down, he was talking about how it's a family and how it'll still be a family

and how he will still come around and like Genie will like if she needs help with something like she knows she can she can go to him and even being like oh, being very positive about the outlook and almost already shifting to talking like a fan of the team like an elder statesman that we all thought he was going to be was like oh they only need one guy and like they're set up. Everything is in place or whatever which is totally not the case. Yeah, him saying that he left them set up in a good place is hysterical. Yeah, he said that he wouldn't leave if he felt like they weren't heading in the right direction. They're heading in the wrong direction.

Because whatever the situation is next year, it's not just as simple as going to Bob Myers and being like, here's the keys. Because Bob Meyer still has to deal with LeBron and Rich Paul. And I'm not even, I think when it comes to like looking at LeBron and Rich's influence or even just like what they, like, how Machiavellian they are, I'm probably on the like softer side where I'm like, I'm sure they have their like preferences and I'm sure they can make life incredibly difficult. they're not enjoying themselves. But at the end of the day, they're not the GM. You know what I mean?

Like, I think that at the end of the day, like, if they had gone to LeBron and been like, we can't pull off the Santhony Davis deal without it getting out of control until the summer. So if you're hurt, don't come back. Right. And that's why you sign someone like Rob Polinka to be in that position as GM is to basically be a counter to Rich Paul.

To have someone who knows that kind of side of the business and is able to stand up when you need really stand up against some of these power ranges. Yeah, and look, you can see all the, you can connect all the dots from the KCP deal a couple years ago, and when they signed Constavius Calvo Pope to that weird contract that was like an overpay for one year, and Rob's in the press conference talking about its manna from heaven to get KCP and thanking Rich Paul from the press conference dais and saying like Rich Paul, Rich has been so helpful and helping us figure out cap stuff and stuff like that.

Then Riches delivers LeBron, which was probably a Faya Complete anyway because it was part of of what LeBron wanted to do with this last chapter of his NBA playing career. And then Rich signs Anthony Davis. And it's just like everything is lining up. And the fact is that a bunch of people in New Orleans decided they probably would rather lose their jobs than see this happen. Yeah. A lot has changed with the Lakers over the past couple of years, but their primary just

guiding force, it's all based on exceptionalism and hope. Right. It's just we hope that this will work out for us, which is not a plan. They need an actual X's and O's, like, logistical plan mapped out to say, we will do this and that, and this leads to that. Well, they're so, like, insulated. Like, you mentioned all, like, the Kerrambuses. And, like, he's still there. He's, like, an advisor.

Like, they're also in their own world that when they get sort of an outside opinion, then Jeannie goes and says, like, oh, this is fake news. And it's like, what world are you living in? And, like, to the Polinka point, like, apparently ESPN is reporting that he's going to keep his job. And if anything, like, his power is going to grow. So, like, so much about. I guess you could so hire a president of basketball operations. I'm sure it will.

And I'm sure what they'll basically try to posit this is Rob will go on basically an apology tour to other GMs, to other agents if necessary. Now there's been reports that like Magic basically alluded to. I've heard stuff that Rob isn't great with other agents or stuff like that. You know what I mean? But that was like a very weird like, I'm not, this is kind of like a weird third rail of this conversation.

But I just, there was something strangely Trumpian about the entire night about like the impromptu- The entire night. I want to tweet more. I am not having fun in my job. I get, you know what I mean? The criticism. I couldn't be myself.

Saying it completely unprompted to everyone's horror. Not telling anyone else. I don't want to say it, but yeah, it's just completely. No, I mean, I don't think it has nothing to do with the politics. I mean, just the performance. You know what I mean? Just like the actual performance and the actual kind of like rambling nature of it felt very off the cuff.

And maybe that's just like that's where we are in the world. where you can just sort of like vlog, even if you're a really important person, you can just kind of like, be like, I'm going live, like and subscribe. But there was just something where I was like, this guy should not be in charge of an NBA team. Is it weird to think that this actually works out in LeBron's favor? No, I think it does. Because maybe he signed up with them in some small part because of magic. We don't really know the calculus of... I think that was the narrative that was put out. They have the dinner. Magic closes it. Magic's just like, here's how you establish yourself.

Oh, that's the other Trump thing was the closing the deal. He kept saying, if I could just have it my way, I could close a deal, I could close any deal. Right. And he'd probably rather

run 17 businesses than be in charge of one. Which, by the way, you can't. Paul George did not sign with the Lakers. It just seems like LeBron has more power than ever. If there's a power of vacuum,

it feels like LeBron is the big enough personality and has the power to kind of like, he's going to fill out the room. And if at this point, their main, like, route to bettering the team is to just sign someone in free agency and just bring him into what they have in their existing core, then LeBron is probably the guy that's going to sign him.

Yeah, I guess, but like, I would almost think that LeBron and Rich Paul, as we were talking about earlier, would see this as a way to start taking that job in that position more seriously. I honestly thought for a minute that this is like Rich is the next rob. Rich is, rich will just become. No, I don't think that's true. I think that maybe when LeBron signed, you're right, that was the narrative that got pushed out. No, I thought last night, I was like, the path is open now for them to just be like, look, it's like, who are we kidding? It's LeBron's team.

If Rich wants to divest himself of clutch and put it in a trust or whatever, he can't become the GM of the Lakers. Like Rob became. Sure. But I think that I think part of the appeal was knowing that Magic doesn't have experience in this. He'd let LeBron have a heavy hand or a. a fair amount of say, which is how it had been in Cleveland, we think. And I almost think that now they're seeing that they need someone to do business, or this is how I would see it, they need someone to do business on a higher level who is qualified to do that

business. So I think that if I was him, I would go into Jeannie's office and say exactly what everyone else is telling her to do. Throw all the money you can as someone who knows how to do this because I'm still playing. This is my agent. And obviously an agent in the front office isn't working out. When we tried to force an Anthony Davis trade, it didn't work out. And now we need someone who's qualified to do all of this stuff.

Here's how screwed they are. So he does that. Let's just say he's like, hey, like, you should go get the best person available for this job. You have my blessing on whatever it is. So you're in a cherry job in the NBA.

You're in your Messiah, you're Bob Myers, your RCP, you're Sam Presti. You're Michael Winger. You're like one of the guys in the front office, the Clippers. and Jeannie Bus calls and is like, what's it going to take to get you to come run the Lakers?

And then, like, how much trepidation do you have about, like, it sounds good, but what happens the first day that LeBron changes his mind about the direction that the team is going in? Because initially when he signed, it was going to be LeBron and the kids. And then it was LeBron and the kids and the suicide squad. And then it was LeBron and the kids in the suicide squad, but they were going to trade everybody for Anthony Davis, and that blew up in their face.

And then everybody got hurt. And the season went into the, the basement. So I don't know what this team is. And I got to tell you, I mean, like, from everything that probably everybody in this room has heard, like, they would not be in the top three or four destinations for most of the free agents that are coming this season. Yeah. Right. Players or GMs. Yeah. Right. I wonder at what point, Jeannie. The clippers are a more attractive destination. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Well, for multiple reasons. You know, the roster is more filled out. They have room to sign someone else.

You know, there's a hole that you don't want to play with the wrong thing. But My question is, at what point do we think that an owner and a front office person have the conversation with LeBron where they're like, you don't necessarily get to make these decisions anymore? They did in Cleveland and he went to Miami. And then they did in Miami and he went to Cleveland. I mean because of age. Because of how he can affect the game. This gets back to what Justin was talking about with what the bus family needs out of the Lakers. Because for as much as they may project, like, we're a championship where those.

legacy champion team of this league, it's probably more important that they sell out every night and LeBron's on national television 40 times a year. Yeah. I think the spoils of going into that job and doing it well are there still. It's still the Lakers. And if you win with the Lakers, I think it's probably better than winning in most places. Yeah, you join Pat and Phil. Right.

Especially now that they're at rock bottom, if you will. Yeah. There's still prestige behind the Lakers. 100%. I mean, being around. L.A. is in some part why LeBron came to L.A. He kind of is... Well, he's not maybe the man to L.A. locals,

but he probably is the man to the celebrity culture that kind of exists out here. I think what you need from that position is someone who's, like, walk the tightrope before with him, because it seems like everything is veering toward... You really need to lean into LeBron's last two years. There's no getting around... Unless you want to make the extreme decision of trading him,

you really just kind of have to make the most of what you have... available. Absolutely. And you have to do it right now. I mean, and the guy that comes to mind and he's been brought up before is just David Griffin simply because he's done this before. He walked into a situation where he had LeBron, he had one or two other good players, and he basically augmented the roster.

Now, he did so by mortgaging the future. But I think that's what's going to take. That's what it's going to take again. Because even if LeBron is diminished, even if he is going to be 35, I still think you could get into title contention with him. So it's really about saying who are we as a team Are we a LeBron team? Are we this young team going forward?

Are we like this star collecting sort of team? But I would just say we're LeBron. We have to keep Brandon Ingram and Monza Ball because I don't know what you're going to get from at this point. We're going to sign a superstar. Who? Jimmy? For all we say about...

Superstar and error quotes. For all we say about Jimmy, I still think you could win with Jimmy LeBron and the young guys. I think you could get how far because that's a second round playoff team to me. Western Conference Finals,

I think if things break right. I think we've gone too far in how we view LeBron and Jimmy. I know that there are difficult players and I wonder the fit, but I still think that there's something there. And if not Jimmy, I wonder if Kemba Walker is like a...

I was going to say Kemba and then trade for someone else. Kemba's basically Kyrie Irving, but just like not as good in certain things. He's a poor man's Kyrie Irving, sure. He's not even a poor, he's just like a, in a little debt. Where is he on earth science? Yeah. Like on earth science.

I don't know. No, yeah. No, I think it's a fair point. I mean, like, my thought goes to, what if, like, do we even know that you want to play for the leg? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's the thing. It's like, not even him. We're like sure if that he would go to the Lakers.

I do wonder, like, what is, not just what is LeBron thinking about all this, but what is his motivation in general? Because it does, I don't know. if he, part of coming to LA felt like very much like, all right, I'm going to end my career here. Hold on a second. Do you hear the news? What happened?

LeBron just asked for a trade. Are you kidding? No. Stop. No, you would have believed it, though. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. The Lakers are off the rails. Wait. What would it be funny, though, if he did that and then locked the door and we couldn't get out and then

like shut the internet down and see if we believed it? That would be a good experiment. That was really good. That's good. He was so serious. I legitimately believed him for a second. Okay. So LeBron James is asked for trade.

Where were we? I'm just wondering what LeBron's motivation is through all this. Like, I don't know if he, obviously he still wants to win. But through all of this, is he realizing that he maybe got into a bigger mess than he originally thought? Like, that's something I really would like to hear. I mean, he might not be honest about that. but it's very interesting to me how bright and it seemed at the beginning and now how bleak it's got in just a season.

Yeah, I mean, not to like do Game of Thrones Spancom, but there is like real chaos as a ladder thing here. So it's like, is this a situation that he's like, I'm backing away slowly into the bush, or is he like, nope, this is like the moment where me and the guys that I've like surrounded myself with can kind of ascend and basically take over this team to some extent, you know, or is to everybody,

point is at a point where he's just like, I understand this was a crazy first year. You hire who you think you need to hire. I'm going to work best I can with them to make the best out of the situation. I think you're right though. I think that you're right that whoever is coming in, whether it's Griff, whether it's an assistant GM somewhere, whether it's like, you know, like, Zarin, the Gerson Roehouse, like whoever is like in the mix for this is going to have the mandate of this is a 48-month job. Or this is a 36-month job. Like you have this, you have, you have X amount of good months of NBA basketball left in LeBron

and he's not notoriously very patient so this is a huge summer for you and they're going to have to hire somebody like literally in two weeks. It seems like Sam Presti just fits that description perfectly. I mean, think about someone who like completely flipped a team after But he tore them down first.

I mean, I guess you're right. After Durant, he did. The influx of talent and securing talent and drawing, you know, know, it was everything that... But you think about that day that Paul George got traded, and I remember... It's not even that significant of a sporting event, like a moment for me,

but I will never forget where I was because of how surprising it was. Because he just put together a deal and called Pritchard and made it happen. And that's not what we're used to with the Lakers, and it certainly isn't what we're used to with LeBron. Yeah, I think the biggest issue they face if they're going to keep Rob Polinka is

being an agent, based on my just limited experience with agents, it seems like it's very much you're focused on one person and getting that one person everything that he or she wants. Being a GM is really about satisfying everybody. It's about connecting all of these various individuals. Right. And they need more people like that underneath them. I think there's a possible-

And that's what Magic didn't like about the job, I think, too. Yeah, so you have two people who are more focused on, in Magic's case, probably himself. And in Rob's case, maybe LeBron or, I don't know, what Kobe's legacy is. He was Kobe's agent, so I don't know how much that plays a factor in things. but if you look at how Bob Myers, for instance, did it in Golden State, a former agent who ascended to power, he's just

seems like the nicest guy in the room who really wants everybody to like work together. The whole kind of takeaway from the Warriors' first title run was basically that everyone has a voice in the room. That story about the assistant coach who had an idea and we've heard it a million times at this point. But like

it seems like it's coming from like this leadership manual but that stuff is important. Yeah. There are two types of people pleasers. And just like there are two types of agents. You know what I mean? And I think more often than not we think of agents is cutthroat people who will do whatever they need to do to get what they need.

But then you burn a lot of bridges that way. And Myers is the opposite of that. I just think they're two completely different ends of the spectrum. Yeah. I thought last night we can end on this kind of in general. And we'll have a regular group chat tomorrow where we're doing an NBA playoffs preview. The playoffs are about to start.

Everybody's really excited about it. We're going to have a new Eastern conference a non-Lebron Eastern Conference finals representative for the first time in almost a decade. So that's pretty interesting to think about and like... Pretty sad to think about it.

Rockets are like playing their asses off right now. I have no idea what the seating is going to be still. You know, it is an exciting time in the NBA. But I couldn't help but wonder... Whoa, Carrie Bradshaw. I couldn't help... Across town. I couldn't help but notice last night

that Magic was doing this... Right at the same time that there was supposed to be these sort of very orchestrated celebrations of Dirk and Dwayway. And it was very symbolic of the NBA season to me. It was like Dwayne Wade's probably been playing this night for like six months. Right.

Dirk Novitsky, even though he's like, I haven't said I'm retiring yet. Dirk has done the same victory laugh too. Yeah. They get to the end of this season. The entire night is geared around celebrating these guys. And magic blows it up. And that's his, that's totally his right.

Like he can do it. But I thought it was really symbolic of what a cluster fuck this NBA season has been. I just want to point out. This Laker season has been. The entire season. Magic upstaging Dirk and Wade's final game is the kicker on the 2018-19 Lakers season.

Actually, the kicker was losing on a buzzer beat it to the Blazers. Oh my God. That was insane. Yeah. That happened. But like from the Kyrie and Kevin stuff, Kevin and Draymond on the Benjamin, I mean, Bill did like a whole list last night.

All the crazy things happened. And Zach Lowe tweeted out. I mean, he was like, and then like everything that happened with Markell Fultz doesn't even make the top 10, you know. And now we get to the end of the season. And look, like, it's good for NBA Twitter. And it's good for the league as a narrative, I guess. Yeah. And I don't know how you legislate people not doing stupid stuff.

But I did think that this was like, if you were, if the NBA season was, was a play, you'd be like, you guys are still in rehearsals. Like, you guys are not ready to open. If this season was a play, you'd just be like, oh man, they really like fluffed a couple of lines and there was some like scene stuff that went wrong and like the guys like forgot what, where they would do. Like, it just seemed like a season that never really got out of its out of the starting block. I guess my counter argument to that would be that for as, because the narrative now is that like the regular season is too long and doesn't matter, you almost need that stuff to keep it interesting.

Not saying that maybe you specifically need it. No, it's a chicken or the egg thing. But you know what I'm saying? Does the end of the season not matter because we're so distracted? Like nothing really matters unless it's like a tweet or a trade rumor or a firing. I mean, there are times when it feels that way. That is the season now. All of these things that we're talking about, that is our season.

Like how many times did we get reports about like behind the scenes practices like blowing up or like these like player meetings? I feel like we've had like 10 of those this season. And it's like, would that stuff have gone out, you know, like three seasons ago? I don't know. Yeah, this is a bigger conversation, but I mean, it just seems like there are more fans of NBA narrative or whatever you want to call the storyline that we track throughout the season, all this drama and whatnot, then there are basketball fans. And like, I'm not saying that as someone who's like at home just grinding tape.

Just crushing tape. Just watching like the pick and rolls and... Just like the cops. Getting lost in basketball. Reference sliders. Motion offense. You know me. Deep Reddit threads. Deep Reddit threads. Well, maybe some of that, actually. It's just, I think this is what it is now. This is what we're following.

Yeah, it's my favorite reality TV show. Yeah. It is. Like, it's so much fun. It's as online as it is offline. Yeah. You can literally consume the games and consume the NBA every other second you want to. That's so different. It's just so interesting. I can't believe we're here. Like, I can't believe that's the thing. It's not, it's not a value judgment. It's really just like, I wonder whether or not,

this is what they want. Yeah, the NBA is veering toward this kind of moment where all the celebrity elements and all the drama that they're building up and kind of not leaning into,

but they're kind of letting happen. They're big on Twitter, they're big on social media, and it's coming head on with, like, actual viewers, and there's almost like two different camps. They don't mesh as often as you'd think. And considering all, like,

the troubles ahead for all sports league in terms of like viewership and cable deals and all this stuff. The attention, like the attention span economy of like how, like how many things are competing for people's eyes and hours in their day. Right. Or like where they're viewing it. Yeah. It's just, it seems like there's this big gap happening.

And it's bigger than I can ever remember. I think that the, I think it would be one thing if it felt, the one thing I would say is that it just felt like this was a season where some of the biggest players didn't really want to be playing in some ways. Like, you know, it just felt like. as a situation where between Kyrie and Kevin and Davis which is just like

Kevin I think has been fine this year like he just is kind of being cranky but Kyrie and Davis especially I was just like what are you guys doing like what's then what's the point then like you know should we just what if we just like dissolve all contracts

that everybody gets to pick where they want to play like can we then have like three years where somebody tries like now I'm not saying not try but I just mean like I just like I would love to see the Celtics and the Sixers just like clash and not have it be like also like a referendum on where people are going to go next summer.

Right. I mean, that's the thing. That's what I was trying to say is like we, there are some of us I think who want to just enjoy sort of not just enjoy the games, but we want that aspect of the, you know, what the Sixers and Celtics have to a certain extent, right? When they play each other. And yet everything does seem to be like a

precursor for the actual the next thing that's happening. Exactly. And I don't know how I feel about I think it's cool. I mean, I think it's definitely good for business. It's definitely good for the NBA. I think it's interesting. I think it's very human.

I mean, I think it's like super, like, transparent and human to see people like kind of work through these emotions in public. But I don't know necessarily that it's for good, makes for good NBA season. I don't think I will look back on this NBA season fondly, personally. I think we either need fewer games or something in the middle of the season.

Like a break? Not necessarily a break, but maybe like a tournament of some sort. I mean, we've talked about this for years now, It just seems like the slog to get to 82 is almost like breeding some of these resentments and these weird like ego trip storylines and all these other stories. Yeah.

And I think tanking is like for whatever like some people have got, you know, like are out on baseball because like it's been solved to some extent. Like you can be like, just move all the guys over when there's a guy who pulls. You know what I mean? Like it's almost like tank tank has kind of done that to the end of the season where it's just like when the bottom 15% of the league just is like, no, we're not going to try and win these games. It just gets kind of like, well, then what are we doing? Like, you should almost just forfeit or something.

It's weird. Right. It's like those fantasy leagues where the guy knows he's not going to win the playoffs. And so he'll, like, release his players before. He just picks up all Virginia Tech guys. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I mean, with tanking, you know, that's one thing they fix. These things, they're trying to, like, tweak minor things.

And I'm sure that. Right. But I'm sure that they just, the league actually, loves all of this. As much as it hurts them, as much damage control as they have to do, as much as they feel like they have to hand out fines to keep people happy. So many people are talking about the NBA. It depends on who you're talking about with the league. Because Adam Silver works for the owners. And I don't know if you're an owner, how psyched you are about this. Because there's a lot of money on the line. And if you start getting into a world where

guys are just like sitting out for years for a year, you know, like that starts to like really mess up the money. And that's when changes usually happen. I'm sure we'll talk about this also. summer as stuff happens. We'll be back tomorrow with an actual NBA playoff preview. Thanks for listening to the NBA show today for Justin Haley and Palo. I'm Chris.