Jeanie Buss recently spoke about Magic Johnson being the perfect person to convince LeBron James to come to the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Los Angeles Lakers were able to make a huge splash when the signed LeBron James this offseason. Coming into the offseason, signing a star was a main priority for the Lakers. After making some trades over the past two years, the Lakers were able to position themselves very nicely for free agency this past summer and for the upcoming summer.
While having cap space is obviously the most important thing to sign free agents, it also takes some other things to convince a star player to join a new franchise. The Lakers have strong leadership at the top of their organization with Rob Pelinka and Magic Johnson.
In the recruiting of LeBron, Magic Johnson played a huge part in getting a deal done. Recently, Jeanie Buss talked about Johnson being the perfect guy to convince James to come to Los Angeles. Here’s what Buss had to say to Jim Hill of CBS Sports with text via LakersNation.com.
"“I knew that Magic was the right person to connect with LeBron and explain to him what the Lakers are all about. I mean, he is the epitome of what being a Laker is. And he’s also from kind of the same area, the Midwest, and moved to Los Angeles and made L.A. his home. So he really had all the right things to talk to LeBron about.”"
Buss brings ups some great points about James and Johnson being able to connect on a level deeper than basketball. Johnson will be able to show James how to be even more successful when his playing days are over like Johnson is, and James is starting to do.
From a basketball perspective, Johnson was obviously able to sell James on becoming the new face of the Lakers franchise. As a franchise with so many great players in the past James certainly has big shoes to fill.
With James leading the way, the Lakers are playing much better this season than in previous years. While the Lakers haven’t had a great start to the season, they have started to gel a bit more and are playing better as a unit.
James is committed to the Lakers on a long-term deal and we will have to wait and see what he is able to accomplish. However, if not for Magic Johnson, James might not have considered coming to the Lakers.