The Los Angeles Lakers were recently fined $500,000 for tampering with Paul George, and Magic Johnson wants the money taken out of his paycheck.
Magic Johnson wants Jeanie Buss to take the tampering fine out of his salary. "This is something we can correct." https://t.co/jRWbb5rXOg
— Tania Ganguli (@taniaganguli) September 5, 2017
The team’s president of basketball ops apologized to owner Jeanie Buss for the violation taking place “under my watch.”
Magic says he was joking around when publicly discussing the possibility of PG joining the Purple and Gold.
Per the LA Times:
“We can’t say a lot but we will correct the situation,” Johnson said Monday. “It’s under my watch. I apologize to Jeanie, and that was the main thing. I told her she could take it out of my salary because I don’t want the Lakers to be paying that fine. … I don’t want her spending $500,000, because she didn’t do anything. That’s on me.”
The NBA hired an independent firm to investigate tampering charges brought by the Indiana Pacers. The firm concluded that Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka gave an illegal expression of interest to George’s agent, Aaron Mintz, while George was under contract with the Pacers. Pelinka reports to Johnson.
“This is just on a late-night show being funny,” Johnson said after touring a donation facility he helped organize with West Angeles Church to benefit victims of Tropical Storm Harvey. “But now I know I can’t do that. We’re OK. I haven’t thought twice about it. We made a mistake. … It’s under my watch. I’m gonna make sure it doesn’t happen anymore.”
Through a spokesperson, Pacers general manager Kevin Pritchard said, “We accept the league’s findings.”
Said Johnson on Monday: “We’re going to have meetings about it next week. … I’m gonna always care about the Laker brand, the Laker fans, so I apologize to them as well. The main thing is we’re going to move forward. We got 95% everything’s going great. This is the one thing that went bad. … This is something we can correct. Adam [Silver, NBA commissioner] is a great friend of mine. I’m glad he was able to do his job. Now I’m gonna do my job.”
