A few months before they would meet in the 1982 NBA Finals, the two sides again engaged in a tense meeting at the Great Western Forum on Feb. 26. In the end, Magic and Kareem led L.A. to a hard-fought double overtime win over the Sixers.

Kareem was in rare form as Philadelphia had no one to guard him, and the big man went on to finish with 41 points and 19 rebounds. Magic, meanwhile, notched a triple-double with 18 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.

The Lakers also got 24 points from Jamaal Wilkes to win their sixth straight game. Super-sub Andrew Toney led the 76ers with 27 points, while Dr. J finished with 22 points, six rebounds and four assists.

Lakers and 76ers would meet in NBA Finals again

The two sides would eventually meet in the NBA Finals and once again the Lakers came out on top, defeating the Sixers in six games, just as they did two years prior. It wouldn’t be until the following year, when the 76ers added Hall of Famer Moses Malone, that they would finally get their revenge on the Lakers on the NBA’s grandest stage.

But on this night in Lakers history, it was Magic and Kareem who were once again unstoppable as they kept the Lakers on the path to their second NBA championship of the decade.

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Luka Doncic’s arrival gives the purple and gold its next superstar to build around, but off the court the team has new a majority owner in Mark Walter.

Walter also owns the Los Angeles Dodgers, a franchise that has become the gold standard in MLB and the envy of professional sports teams because of how well set up they are to win championships every year.

With the Lakers and Dodgers under Walter, the two franchises are starting to integrate and collaborate closer together. Even team personnel is starting to cross over as Walter named Lou Rosen as the Lakers’ new president of business operations with Tim Harris leaving at the end of the 2025-26 season.

Rosen previously served as the Dodgers’ executive vice president and chief of marketing, but also has a close relationship with Magic Johnson dating back to their time with the Lakers. Rosen previously worked with the Lakers and then was Johnson’s agent.

While Rosen will be taking over more responsibilities with the Lakers, he confirmed that Johnson will not be returning in any sort of official capacity despite being around the team like he always is, via Dave McMenamin of ESPN:

“Earvin is one of the most unique individuals I’ve known in my life, and he’s one of my closest friends,” Rosen said. “I’ve known him since we were both 19. Earvin’s involved with all types of things. He owns football teams, baseball teams, soccer teams, insurance companies, a lot of things. He’s always going to have some type of involvement with all the teams, but he is not going to have a day-to-day involvement. It’s going to be no different since he left the Lakers.

“Obviously, he’s a huge fan of the Lakers, but he’s not going to be, ‘Hey, Rob, go sign this player. Do that.’ He’ll always be involved with all the teams that he’s involved in, but no, he’s not going to have day-to-day involvement, at all. He is a super Laker fan and he’ll continue to be a super Laker fan. It’s not bad to have that.”

Johnson was the Lakers’ president of basketball operations for two seasons before unexpectedly resigning, but has remained an ardent supporter of the franchise. As Rosen mentioned, Johnson is now a part owner of several professional sports teams and will continue on cheering the Lakers from the sidelines.

More changes to the Lakers organization will be happening in the coming months and it’ll be interesting to see how things shake out.

Lou Rosen confirms Rob Pelinka will continue to lead Lakers front office

New leadership generally means changes to a team’s front office and staff, but Lou Rosen actually confirmed that Rob Pelinka will continue to lead the Lakers’ front office. However, Rosen did mention that Dodgers’ executives Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi will be around to assist so Pelinka should at least have more support when making decisions.

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Assuming the title of president of basketball operations, Johnson set about his task of rebuilding the once-great franchise. The move was a shocking one, but the general consensus was that change was needed.

Jim Buss had given himself a deadline to bring the team back to contention and clearly was not going to make it, and he and Kupchak had handed out head-scratching long-term contracts to Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng during the summer.

Those deals would hamstring the Lakers’ ability to make moves, and would ultimately lead push Jeanie to make a change.

Johnson, who had been working as an advisor for the Lakers, would have little time to acclimate to his new role. The trade deadline was just two days away, and a number of difficult decisions would have to be made.

In his first two moves at the helm, Johnson traded Lou Williams to the Houston Rockets in exchange for Corey Brewer and a first-round pick in the 2017 Draft, which was ultimately flipped on draft night to acquire Josh Hart and Thomas Bryant.

The Lakers would eventually bring in Kobe Bryant’s former agent, Rob Pelinka, as general manager to help fulfill Johnson’s vision for the team. There was optimism that the magnetic Johnson and savvy Pelinka would find success where Jim Buss and Kupchak had failed, and provide young head coach Luke Walton with a team that could put the organization back on the path to relevance.

Some criticized Jeanie Buss for again turning to the team’s past by asking a Lakers legend to right the ship, but Johnson would have an opportunity to put his stamp on the team that he became synonymous with as a player.

Magic Johnson left Lakers two years later

Just two years after taking the job as president of basketball operations, Magic Johnson famously resigned in an end-of-the-year press conference that caught everyone off guard.

Pelinka would take over the Lakers’ front office from there, completing a trade for Anthony Davis a couple months later and then winning the NBA Championship in 2020.

While Johnson’s tenure with the Lakers did not end great, he still made some big moves such as luring LeBron James to L.A. that led to that 2020 championship.

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As defending champions, the Lakers were sure to get the best shot from every team and that was the case on Feb. 19, 1988. The Lakers found themselves on the road against perennial playoff team, the Atlanta Hawks and despite the best efforts from Dominique Wilkins, Magic and Worthy would not allow their team to fall.

Magic fnished with a triple-double of 29 points, 19 assists and 11 rebounds, while Worthy led the Lakers with 38 points in a 126-119 overtime win over the Hawks. The win was the Lakers’ sixth straight.

All five starters scored in double-figures as A.C. Green also added a double-double with 17 points and 11 rebounds, Byron Scott scored 18 points, and Kareem finished with 12.

Wilkins paced the Hawks with 38 points, Cliff Levingston had 29 points and 16 rebounds, and Doc Rivers chipped in with 15 points and 15 assists. But despite a double-digit lead going into the fourth quarter, they just couldn’t hold off a determined Lakers team.

L.A. would go on to stretch this winning streak to an impressive 10 games before finally falling.

Lakers would go on to win NBA Championship

They would also fulfill Riley’s guarantee with a hard-fought, seven-game NBA Finals victory over the Detroit Pistons, marking a fifth NBA Championship for the Lakers in the decade.

As was the case on this day in Lakers history, the Finals victory took a team effort with everyone contributing in their respective roles. That is what made this era of Lakers basketball so special, and it was on full display 30 years ago today.

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During that time, the Lakers were in the midst of a rebuild and Zubac was only 21-years-old. He showed signs of being a quality center demonstrated the capability of a double-double big.

The Lakers have endless resources and plenty of successful centers who have walked through this organization. Zubac had all the tools to replicate the success he has had with Clippers with the team that drafted him, but they gave up on him prematurely.

Now reflecting on his time with the Lakers, the Zubac revealed a damning story of Johnson preventing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from mentoring and working out with him, via X&O’s CHAT:

“After a few workouts, he told me he wanted to mentor me and work for the Lakers. After that, he had a meeting with Magic, and I don’t know what happened there, but he never got a job with the Lakers. He wanted some kind of role with the team just to work with me and the big guys, but unfortunately that never happened.”

On the surface, Johnson refusing to hire Abdul-Jabbar to work with Zubac and the other centers on the team makes little sense. Perhaps what prevented this move from happening was giving the Hall of Famer a job description and compensation for his time, but that shouldn’t have happened.

Johnson was president of basketball operations for a handful of years before eventually stepping down. He did some good things during his tenure like getting LeBron James to sign, but how he handled Zubac sticks out as one of his biggest mistakes.

Now with Mark Walter as the majority owner, a mistake like this should never happen again. Money should not be a deciding factor on whether or not to keep a player, which has haunted the Lakers for the past handful of years.

Ivica Zubac fondly recalls working out with Kareem-Abdul-Jabbar

During Ivica Zubac’s departure from the Lakers, having an opportunity to work alongside one of the greatest centers ever in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Although things did not materialize into a long-form working relationship, Zubac still looks back fondly of putting in time with Abdul-Jabbar.

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