Philadelphia 76ers: Magic Johnson and Lakers’ blatant tampering must stop

Magic Johnson revealed before his Lakers played the Philadelphia 76ers that he wanted to help train Ben Simmons this summer if he could get the clearances. We then found out the Sixers had rejected this request over a month ago. Why bring it up? One can imagine.

When Magic Johnson played for the Los Angeles Lakers they were the biggest names in the basketball business. It was ‘Showtime’ and his Lakers were always a contender for the title (beating the Philadelphia 76ers twice in the Finals) until he retired in the early 1990s.

After he was gone, other stars like Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal wangled their way to L.A. and the Lakers won more NBA titles. Everyone wanted to play for the Purple and Gold it seemed, and celebrities flocked to their games.

But it has been a while since those fun times. The show has been closed for a while.

The Lakers have not been to the Finals since 2010. Heck, they have not even made the playoffs since 2013, when they were swept by San Antonio.

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Owner Jeanie Buss fired her brother two years ago from running the basketball end and installed Magic Johnson as team president and former agent Rob Pelinka as general manager.

The Lakers fortunes have not seen much of an upswing since Magic took over. They currently are 10th in the Western Conference, despite adding LeBron James, just the best player for the past decade.

How bad do you look when you have LeBron and can’t even make the playoffs?

Magic and Pelinka apparently think it is 1986 and everyone wants to be a Laker, they just know it, deep down,

The NBA, which rarely does anything to any management not named Mark Cuban, has smacked the Lakers twice with fines for tampering with Paul George and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

And that does not even count the obviously orchestrated Anthony Davis situation, where LeBron’s agent took the fall for trying to ship him to the Lakers and help his fellow client.  Although his fingerprints were not directly on this, Johnson was quite upset that the Pelicans would not hand over one of the top players in the game for some mediocre players and low draft picks.

Johnson seems to be mystified why all these top players are not flocking to play for the Lakers. James is 34 years old, so, at some point, his game has to start trending downward, and then the Lakers are really cooked unless something changes dramatically.

So why not sow some seeds of discontent between the 76ers and Ben Simmons?

According to general manager Elton Brand, Pelinka over a month ago contacted him about Simmons wanting to get some mentoring from Johnson in the summer.

Now, why the Lakers would know about Simmons’ wish and not the Sixers, Simmons’ team after all, I am sure gave Brand a start. Not being stupid, Brand said thank you but we prefer not to have our star point guard work with the executive of another team who has been smacked twice for tampering.

This was all behind the scenes stuff until Sunday’s Lakers-76ers game. Asked an innocuous question about Simmons, Johnson revealed how he had asked to work with him and he was amenable to it — as long as all sides signed off.

The first reaction should be from the Lakers guards, wondering why Magic will train other team’s guards to look better facing them.

But the ire of the whole 76ers Nation was whipped up when Brand the next day said he had already rejected this proposition.

So Magic Johnson, unprovoked, mentions something that he knows was turned down over a month ago. Now why would he do such a thing? There are two reasonable possibilities:

• A. Magic Johnson does not know when to stop talking
• B. It was a good chance to drive a wedge with Ben Simmons and the 76ers.

B looks most likely.

Johnson obviously thinks this makes the Lakers look like good guys.

‘Look Ben, I am willing to help you but those EVIL horrible Sixers won’t let me,” is probably what he hopes Simmons thinks.

Publicly, Brand is downplaying it, but you have to imagine he is furious with Johnson talking about what he thought was a dead issue, and trying to make him look bad.

Once again, the NBA is investigating the Lakers for possible tampering.. On the face of it, why do the Lakers know about Simmons’ desires first and why would one of their executives help an opposing player improve his game? Yeah, Magic is just such a great guy, that must be the answer.

Maybe they can do a swap? Brand is a two-time All-Star forward. Maybe the Lakers will send Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram to spend a week at their facility in Camden while Brand teaches them the ins-and-outs of playing forward in the NBA.

While we are at it, Brand can send T.J. McConnell to Boston and get tips on three-pointers from Celtics GM Danny Ainge, who was a nice shooter in his time.

Of course, all these scenarios sound ludicrous. But, somehow, Magic Johnson does not think it is weird he will help an opposing player.

That is because Magic Johnson and the Lakers simply think they are entitled to do what they please because, well, he is Magic Johnson and the Lakers and they must be one of the top teams in the NBA because it is the way it has always been, and they way it should be.

The fact these dumb NBA rules sometimes get in the way of future Lakers glory, well that is a small price to pay. You might note a bit of desperation to this tactic as ‘Showtime’ is still closed.

One hopes the NBA will come down hard on Johnson and the Lakers, maybe strip them of a draft pick since fines obviously do not mean anything to them.

With what has occurred involving Davis and now Simmons plus their past history, it is time for quasi-76ers executive Adam Silver, who moonlights as NBA Commissioner, to put a stop to this nonsense.

There cannot be rules for Magic Johnson and the Lakers because they are Magic Johnson and Lakers — and different ones for everyone else.

Hopefully, Johnson’s meddling does not affect the Sixers’ relationship with Simmons. Either way, this is an unacceptable way to do business and the NBA needs to do something about or it will just continue.