From now on, Los Angeles Lakers president Magic Johnson should just pretend NBA players who aren’t on his team don’t exist.
Johnson and Rob Pelinka, the Lakers’ general manager, were at the center of a tampering controversy related to Paul George over the summer—one for which the team was assessed a record fine, due to its improper contact with PG13 while he was still with the Indiana Pacers. That $500,000 penalty should be enough for any franchise and executive to remain on hyper-alert moving forward, but not the Lakers—not Johnson.
The team was again fined by the league under the tampering umbrella on Tuesday, this time for comments Johnson made about Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo. Ohm Youngmisuk has the lowdown over at ESPN.com:
Johnson recently praised Antetokounmpo’s play in an ESPN interview, saying he’d someday lead the Bucks to a championship. A source told ESPN that the fine Tuesday was for the comments made in that interview.
“Oh yeah,” Johnson told ESPN when asked whether he saw parallels between Antetokounmpo’s play and his. “With his ball-handling skills and his passing ability. He plays above the rim; I never could do that. But in his understanding of the game, his basketball IQ, his creativity of shots for his teammates … that’s where we [have the] same thing. Can bring it down, make a pass, make a play.
“I’m just happy he’s starting in the All-Star Game because he deserves that. And he’s going to be like an MVP, a champion. This dude, he’s going to put Milwaukee on the map. And I think he’s going to bring them a championship one day.”
Johnson’s comments, as you can see, are beyond innocuous. He actually says Antetokounmpo is going to win the Bucks a title. Not the Lakers, but the Bucks. Milwaukee even used his comments in a graphic, which makes this even more hysterical, because chances are the organization needed to lodge a complaint against Johnson’s sentiments for the NBA to care.
By letter of the law, yes, this qualifies as tampering. Executives are essentially supposed to rebuff questions about other rival players without giving a partial answer, let alone a romantic diatribe. Maybe the Bucks, or the NBA, viewed Johnson’s comments as a means of indirectly buttering up Antetokounpo in advance of his free agency…in 2021. Or maybe they’re just being super hard on the Lakers in general because of their proven tampering with Paul George—who, for the record, it doesn’t look like they’ll be signing anyway.
Ah, well. At least this slip of the tongue, deliberate or accidental, didn’t cost the Lakers a half-million bucks. They’re skating away with a $50,000 fine. They’ll likely make that back, and then some, in the time it takes to right the league a check.
All that being said, Johnson would do well to walk an incredibly fine line in all future interviews.
