Why Magic's bizarre departure from Lakers is bad news for the Celtics

A combined $31.8 million for Lance Stephenson, Rajon Rondo, JaVale McGee, Michael Beasley and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Trading Ivica Zubac for Mike Muscala. One look at the moves of Magic Johnson as team president of basketball operations for the Lakers over the past year should tell you everything you need to know about his management ability at the helm. Landing LeBron James in free agency last summer proved to be the high point for the franchise over the past 12 months and it’s easy to see why when looking at the targets the Lakers spent big money on to surround him with.

Those series of failures set the stage for Johnson’s resignation from the Lakers on Tuesday night, a bizarre episode by even NBA standards. The 40-minute impromptu press conference at the Staples Center ahead of the Lakers' regular-season finale came as a surprise to everyone. Johnson went public with his decision to leave before even telling Lakers owner Jeanie Buss.

"It's a difficult decision. I cried before I came here," Johnson said. "I am about to cry now. It's hard when you love an organization the way I love this organization. It's hard when you love a person like I love Jeanie. I don't want to disappoint her ... I want to go back to having fun. I want to go back to being who I was before taking on this job."

The entire situation was symbolic of the Lakers dysfunction for most of the year. They had turned into a soap opera with rumors swirling around trades, Luke Walton’s job security and locker room infighting that helped James miss the postseason for the first time in nearly 15 years.

Johnson and inexperienced general manager Rob Pelinka have been at the center of it all and neither seemed very well equipped to handle the grind of the NBA. Johnson reportedly spent very little time scouting and was often away from the team, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com. Pelinka spent his career trying to get his players paid as an agent rather than evaluating which ones were worthy of a payday. In his farewell, Johnson didn’t exactly give Pelinka a stamp of approval.

"Do I think Rob is the right GM? That's a decision Jeanie has to make," Johnson said. "I worked well with him. I had no problem with him. Jeanie has to make all the calls. That's not the calls for me to make. This is her organization."

In leaving now, Johnson is essentially giving Buss an out. He was not going to be fired after two years on the job since he is too important of a figurehead to the team’s history to get that kind of treatment. By stepping away, albeit, in an embarrassing fashion, the Lakers will have an opportunity to reset once more ahead of the biggest offseason in years for the franchise.

Running the Lakers immediately emerges as one of the most appealing gigs on the open market for executives. Unlike the long road towards rebuilding in places like New Orleans and Washington, the Lakers have one of the best players on the planet in place and plenty of cap room to be used. They are still far from contention at this point, but some front office savvy has the ability to change that in a hurry.

With Johnson in place, moves with any kind of savvy were going to be tough to come by. He traded away valuable role pieces (Larry Nance Jr., D’Angelo Russell) to get rid of bad contracts (Jordan Clarkson, Timofey Mozgov) and did nothing with that cap room beyond signing filler one-year deals to overpriced veterans (Rondo, Beasley, Stephenson) after signing James. He also let talented supporting pieces walk (Brook Lopez, Julius Randle) in free agency while replacing them with inferior pieces for more money. The body of work was arguably a bottom-five job in the league even after signing James last summer.

Moving forward, the Lakers, on paper, stand as an obstacle to some of the Celtics’ best-laid plans, starting with the acquisition of Anthony Davis. While the Lakers don’t have the asset to outbid Boston for the All-Star (something we found out ahead of the trade deadline), they will loom as a potential suitor this summer and into free agency in 2020 too for Davis (if they keep their cap room open). Los Angeles is always going to have inherited advantages over a place like Boston when it comes to attracting free agents, so it’s in the Celtics’ best interest for this franchise to be run ineptly (just like the Knicks) over the past few years.

With Johnson out of the mix though, opportunities will emerge to bring some experience and know-how into the mix. A clean break with Pelinka could emerge without repercussions for Buss while a figure with success and experience (such as former Cavs general manager David Griffin) could enter the fold to guide the Lakers back into respectability. It’s unclear whether Buss will have proper instincts to make the right hire here and give them ultimate control over basketball operations but any choice will be better than what Johnson has brought to the table over the last two years. Between his tampering and questionable decisionmaking, the Lakers had turned into a joke with some serious concerns about whether they would be able to appeal to top free agents on the market. Anyone watching this group from afar had to wonder whether they could be trusted to put forward a winning plan.

Now, the Lakers have an opening to bring someone in a fresh outlook and a blueprint. They will always have the money to spend to compete with Boston and other major market franchises but for years have not had the right decisionmakers in place to get the job done. Once the shock wears off after this one, the Celtics, along with 28 other franchises around the league, won’t be happy to see Magic go. In a league that is getting smarter by the day, there is one less franchise to count on now to do dumb things. That makes life tougher for everyone.