On Tuesday, the book “A Hollywood Ending: The Dreams and Drama of the LeBron Lakers” by Yaron Weitzman officially releases, but you’ve likely heard plenty about it already.
Earlier in the week, a wild excerpt
from the book involving LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook and Will Smith grabbed plenty of headlines, as did other anecdotes involving Russ.
As you can likely tell, then, this book dives into the eventful time since LeBron joined the Lakers. It’s a book chock full of incredible anecdotes — including some hilarious Magic Johnson ones we’ll soon touch on — and plenty of reporting around President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka.
If you weren’t already convinced to buy the book based on the Will Smith story alone, here are a couple of other notable segments, stories, and takeaways as well.
Jeanie Buss did not know pick swaps?
Weitzman talks about the Anthony Davis trade discussions between Pelinka and then Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations David Griffin, including a section in which it’s reported that Jeanie Buss did not know what pick swaps were.
According to multiple members of his staff, Griffin said Pelinka had told him that Jeanie Buss didn’t know what pick swaps were. At first, Griffin assumed this was just a bargaining ploy; after all, it was common for GMs to blame their owners for holding up negotiations. But then, Griffin told his group, Pelinka posed a question: If their roles were reversed, how would Griffin go about explaining pick swaps to his boss?
I’m going to be honest, I don’t buy this one simply at face value.
It feels like it plays into a couple of tropes a bit too much. Jeanie has been many things during her time in the NBA, but clueless isn’t one of them. Cheap? Sure. Guilty of nepotism? Definitely.
But unaware of how the NBA works? Ehhhh. She’s represented the team as the governor even before her father passed.
Does that mean she knows all the in-and-outs of the CBA? No. But pick swaps aren’t some complicated notion. Perhaps she needed it explained what exactly the Stepien Rule was and why the team was trading pick swaps instead of picks or what the value of pick swaps were vs. trading the pick itself. That I could buy.
Or perhaps this was Pelinka really buttering Griffin up. For all of Pelinka’s faults, we saw firsthand recently with Nico Harrison and the Mavericks that he definitely knows how to convince opposing GMs that they’re robbing him blind. And Griffin was pretty bad at his job, so it wouldn’t have taken much.
Magic Johnson was really bad at his job
Boy are there plenty of Magic anecdotes detailing how bad he was at his job.
Like the time he got into an argument with Tim DiFrancesco, the Lakers’ strength and conditioning coach, because he wanted to know the body fat percentage of every player, something Pat Riley used to emphasize.
Despite DiFrancesco explaining why body fat percentage wasn’t seen as the “ultimate measure of fitness” anymore and that things had changed in the medical field, Magic remained adamant that he wanted to know every player’s body fat percentage by the end of the season. Not long after that argument, DiFrancesco resigned.
Or about how Magic, only months after being named President of Basketball Operations, dipped out for a three-week cruise in the Mediterranean with Samuel L. Jackson.
There were also multiple stories about his office, including that it didn’t have a desk, just a couch and a TV. Pelinka even tried to cover for Magic at times, but instead, the two became the butt of jokes in the NBA.
Stories illustrating Magic’s seeming indifference made the rounds. They’d eventually make their way back to Magic, who was told that his GM was the one spreading them. A favorite among league insiders was when Spurs executive R.C. Buford noticed, during a tour around the Lakers’ new facility, that Magic’s office didn’t have a desk. Confused, he asked Pelinka about it.
“Earvin’s not really a desk guy,” Pelinka replied. It was an attempt to cover for his boss, not bury him, but “Earvin’s not really a desk guy” became a favorite line among those in NBA circles looking to mock Magic, and it was always attributed to Pelinka
I just don’t understand how things didn’t work out with Magic in charge.
The Lakers are NOT happy about this book
What’s clear throughout is that the Lakers aren’t particularly happy about this book coming out, which you can tell from the very start. It opens with Weitzman explaining that the Lakers hired a defamation lawyer to deal with him after a couple of meetings with Jeanie, which certainly sets a tone.
The best statement from the Lakers, though, came about midway through the book. Weitzman details the Russell Westbrook trade and the simultaneous discussions with the Kings on a Buddy Hield trade. For many Lakers fans, there’s nothing new revealed as he discusses Pelinka negotiating with both front offices, agreeing to a deal with the Kings, then pulling a last-second switch and executing the trade with the Wizards.
Now, to be clear, this is still a wild sequence of events, even if they’ve been out there for a while. Even the players themselves confirmed this is how things went down.
What is noteworthy, though, is the wild statement the Lakers gave Weitzman.
The Lakers representative disputed the chain of events. “The fact that ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski had been given a bad tip is irrelevant to the true facts — and this is just another biased attempt to falsely portray Pelinka as incompetent, dishonest or both,” the representative said. “Whomever the source is, this is, at best, Monday morning quarterbacking, seemingly ever willing to blame Pelinka if things don’t work out and personally taking credit if things do.”
Gee, I wonder who was behind putting that statement together.
There really isn’t any denying how this played out. To say it was a lie would be saying that Woj, agents and players all have some sort of coordinated agenda to make Pelinka look bad.
Maybe, you know, he was just bad at his job?
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on BlueSky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
