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A few weeks ago when Ramona Shelburne of ESPN reported that Lakers president and part-owner Jeanie Buss was having dinner with Magic Johnson while in the midst of “soliciting opinions” on the direction of the franchise, it was unknown what would ultimately come of it. Was it just a dinner between longtime friends, or some sort of job interview?
Maybe that event was insignificant in the grand scheme of things, or maybe it mattered, but coincidentally or not, Buss hired Johnson as a personal advisor to her on both basketball and business matters with the Lakers last week.
It’s unknown if Buss is still looking for more opinions or evaluations of the current state of the Lakers, but because of the events of the last week the photo she posted on Twitter Monday publicly announcing she had met with retired Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant last week can’t help but seem at the very least a little bit notable:
Wanted to thank @kobebryant for spending time with me last week. Nothing more inspiring than #MambaMentality pic.twitter.com/xyqsZ7a3Zf
— Jeanie Buss (@JeanieBuss) February 6, 2017
Now let’s slow our roll before we just assume this means Bryant is coming back to the franchise. He has previously only expressed a willingness to help the team behind the scenes, and maybe this is just part of that.
With that discalaimer out of the way, let’s WILDLY speculate on what this could possibly mean:
- Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers General Manager and Director of Mamba Operations
- Assistant Coach Kobe Bryant
- Achievement of Mamba Mentality Consultant
- Lakers Vice President of Serpentine Marketing
- Bad cop to Luke Walton’s good cop
- Kobe Bryant, un-retired and now starting Lakers shooting guard
- Kobe Bryant, Lakers postgame fashion consultant
- Kobe Bryant, Social Content Editor
- Kobe Bryant, Accountant
And those are just a few of the truly endless possibilities. What do you think is going to happen? Let us know in the comments below!
Harrison Faigen is co-host of the Locked on Lakers podcast (subscribe here), and you can follow him on Twitter at @hmfaigen.