Magic Johnson hasn’t hidden the fact that he doesn’t want him long-term!
The early season meeting with Magic Johnson was not the reason why I thought Luke Walton was in trouble. The fact that it got leaked out and was made to be a huge story was.
Meetings between coaches and the front office happen all the time. Are they always calm and laid back? No. But it is rarely given the attention that this meeting received.
Magic Johnson did come out and guarantee that Luke Walton’s job was safe for the rest of the season…
In a jconversation with me, @taniaganguli and @BA_Turner tonight, Magic Johnson said Luke Walton's job is safe -- "He is going to finish the season, unless something drastic happens, which it won't.''
— Bill Plaschke (@BillPlaschke) November 5, 2018
This is what they call in the sports world a vote of confidence. This is not a ringing endorsement of Luke Walton’s future with the franchise.
What makes this scenario worse in anyone’s mind when you hear on ESPN the possible reason of why he may still be around according to Adrian Wojnarowski on the “Woj and Lowe” special a while back…
"”Since Magic has taken over, they had been hoping to get their own coach in at some point. We saw it play out in the meeting they had earlier in the year where Magic really went after Luke,” Wojnarowski said. “If they’re going to be able to go to Jeanie Buss and sell her on replacing Luke Walton, they better be trying to do it off a season where they missed the playoffs or off of a long losing streak. Because she has been fiercely loyal to Luke Walton. “That was her hire in every way, and so far she has kept management off of him. They’ve allowed Magic and Rob Pelinka to change everything there, they haven’t been able to touch Luke Walton.”"
This is a possible conflict of interest here in the front office that I am very high on. Walton has a very important ally in his corner when it comes to his security. This leads to a problem that could hurt the Lakers season here.
Jeanie Buss is loyal to a coach that the front office team, who has done an extensive reconstruction of the franchise in Rob Pelinka and Magic Johnson, does not want.