Rumors that Magic Johnson stepped down because Jeanie Buss accidentally shared emails where she and Rob Pelinka criticized his job performance are reportedly untrue

Earlier this week, there was a report — that we chose not to aggregate because we try to only bring you news from consistently reliable Lakers newsbreakers as much as possible — that Magic Johnson may have stepped down in part because Jeanie Buss accidentally cc’d him on emails between herself and general manager Rob Pelinka, messages that were critical of Johnson’s job performance with the Lakers.

You can read that report here, but before you do, you should consider that it has now been (seemingly) debunked by the far more reliable Bill Oram and Sam Amick of The Athletic:

The real reasons for Magic’s departure remain somewhat murky, but a source with knowledge of the situation adamantly denied the report indicating that Jeanie had mistakenly shared e-mails with Johnson that were critical of his job performance.

And let’s be real with ourselves for a minute: It always seemed unlikely that report was true. The Lakers have been painted as the picture of dysfunction over the several weeks since Johnson stepped down, but to imply this about their emails habits always seemed like a bit of an attempt at a pile on, because almost no one is dumb enough to accidentally loop a co-worker in on behind the scenes gossip, if those emails were even happening at all.

Come on. That’s like workplace 101! You think Christian and I cc Anthony when we complain about him on our email thread?

Look, on some level the Lakers have earned the laughing that people are doing at them over the last month or so, but if we’re going to poke fun at or criticize them, we should at least have it be over factual information. This report of emails does not seem to be that, so it’s only fair that we try to use this platform to inform people as much, just as we’d try to be upfront about it if there was a possibly unreliable rumor that was big enough that we had to acknowledge it here.

Because let’s be honest: If you want to be angry at — or laugh about — the Lakers, there are much better, factual reasons to do so right now, without implying that they’re brainless enough to accidentally share their burn book with the target of it.

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