Earlier today, news broke of Magic Johnson's abrupt decision to step down as president of the Los Angeles Lakers. Johnson held a press conference announcing his decision, saying that he wasn't having fun in his role as president. He wanted to go back to being more of an ambassador for the organization and game of basketball as whole. While it was a tough decision, he said this was the right thing for him to do.
Given all that he's done for the sport and the Lakers organization, it's tough to see Magic Johnson's time as Lakers president go toes up like this. As great of a player as he was, he was a pretty horrible president. When Johnson took over as president back in 2017, the Lakers finished the season 26-56. The hope was that with him now at the helm, the organization would finally get back on the right track. Instead, they went 35-47 in the 2017-18 season and then 37-45 this season. That's not exactly the type of growth they were looking for.
During his first summer on the job, Johnson made the decision to part ways with former #2 overall pick D'Angelo Russell, who has since flourished with the Brooklyn Nets. This season, Russell averaged 21.1 points, 7.0 assists, and 1.2 steals per game en route to his first All-Star Game appearance, making Johnson look like a fool for trading him.
On top of parting ways with Russell, Johnson also made the decision to allow Julius Randle to enter the waters of unrestricted free agency. During his first season with the New Orleans Pelicans, Randle has averaged 21.4 points and 8.7 rebounds per game, once again making Johnson look foolish.
While Johnson does deserve some credit for getting LeBron James, the vibe I got is that James more or less recruited himself to Los Angeles. He wanted to be a Laker for the sake of being a Laker. I don't think the presence of Johnson played much of a role there. Even if it did, it's not like things got better with James on board. Injuries did play a role, but Johnson failed to put the right type of team around James, largely due to his decisions to part ways with Russell and Randle.
The bottom line is that Johnson's time as Lakers president was a total failure. The team struggled under him and he made personnel moves that were clearly ill-advised. Hopefully for the Lakers, they'll get someone in the front office that actually knows what they're doing.
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