Ahead of the NBA trade deadline in 2019, the Los Angeles Lakers made a move that no one saw coming and frankly was pretty shocking as well as head-scratching. The team traded up-and-coming center Ivica Zubac and Michael Beasley to the division rival Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for Mike Muscala.
Despite showing potential to be the long-term option at the center position, the Lakers’ brass, led by Magic Johnson at the time, decided to trade the talented big man across the hall to the Clippers, which didn’t make much sense at all.
Ivica Zubac Takes Subtle Shot at Magic Johnson
During an appearance on the X’s & O’s Chat podcast, Zubac opened up about the strange way he was traded from the Lakers to the Clippers.
“It’s funny, everyone was surprised, but that year Muscala scored 20 points against us in L.A. I guess they saw him as a stretch five, someone who can shoot and all that,” Zubac said. “That’s how they explained it to me when they called.”
That trade turned out to be one of the worst in recent memory for the Lakers, as Zubac went on to come into his own as the starting center for the Clippers. He became such a success for the Clippers that he was traded, along with Kobe Brown, to the Indiana Pacers ahead of this year’s NBA trade deadline for Bennedict Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson, two first-round draft picks and a second-round draft pick.
Even though the Lakers eventually landed superstar Anthony Davis, the team’s decision not to keep Zubac was clearly a mistake, especially since the two bigs playing together would’ve been an intimidating sight for any opposing team.
Zubac also detailed the odd communication from the then-president of basketball operations, Magic Johnson.
“Magic never called from his own number,” Zubac said of Johnson. “Nobody had his phone number. It was always a hidden number, and Magic would be on the other end. After my second year, I had a team option for the third year. At the exit meeting after the season, they told me they were definitely picking it up. A week before the date of that option, they called my agent and said, ‘We’re not going to take him.’ That’s when my agent went ballistic.”
Magic Blocks Kareem From Mentoring Zubac
November 16, 2012; Los Angeles, CA, USA; NBA players Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Irvin “Magic” Johnson on stage during the ceremony unveiling the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar statue in front of the Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
As if the poor communication wasn’t odd enough, Johnson also blocked fellow Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, arguably the greatest center in NBA history, from mentoring Zubac.
“After that, he [Abdul-Jabbar] had a meeting with Magic, and I don’t know what happened there, but he never got a job with the Lakers,” Zubac said. “He wanted some kind of role with the team just to work with me and the big guys, but unfortunately that never happened. After a few games, he came to watch and Luke Walton drew up a play for me to shoot a baseline sky hook. I missed it and that was the end of them drawing plays for me.”
It’s not all that surprising that Johnson didn’t last long in this position in the Lakers’ front office, as he soon didn’t see eye-to-eye with general manager Rob Pelinka and shocked everyone by resigning out of nowhere two months after trading Zubac before the final game of the 2018-19 NBA season.
Even though Johnson was able to lure LeBron James to the Lakers in NBA free agency, he didn’t do much else to get the storied franchise back on the right track and seemed to know he was better off tending to his many off-the-court businesses.