26-24? It’s Not Really Magical

Magic Johnson, winner of five championships as a player and three as a minority owner of the Lakers, is more than concerned about the current status of the franchise.

Johnson, who owns about 4% of the team and serves as a vice president, says he is uncomfortable with the Lakers struggling to make the playoffs instead of embarking on an annual drive for a No. 1 seeding in the Western Conference.

Turning to the future, he said he was on board with Phil Jackson returning as the Lakers’ coach, and he thinks Kobe Bryant would ultimately agree to it because of Bryant’s desire to win.

Johnson’s thoughts come 50 games into a Laker season that has been calamitous at times, unsettling at others, with surprising events that included a rift between Bryant and Karl Malone, the unexpected resignation of Coach Rudy Tomjanovich, declining attendance at Staples Center and a 26-24 record at the All-Star break. The Lakers are clinging to the eighth and final playoff spot in the West, their worst positioning at the break since 1993-94, the last season they failed to make the playoffs.

“That’s definitely weird, and I don’t like it,” Johnson said Friday during a break from preparations for today’s NBA All-Star game. “It’s not something I’m used to talking about. It used to be, ‘Were we going to be seeded No. 1 or No. 2?’ Now it’s like, ‘What if?’ and ‘If this happens ... ‘

“Not only in my eyes, but Dr. [Jerry] Buss, Mitch Kupchak, the whole Laker organization is not used to talking like this. It’s tough for everybody. We don’t want another year like this ever again. It’s been a roller coaster ride that we’re not used to. We haven’t had this roller coaster ride like the other 30 teams have had at some point. Normally other teams have this.”

Johnson predicted the slump was only temporary, and the first step would be to improve defensively. The Lakers are 17th in scoring defense and 4-21 in games where they’ve given up 100 or more points.

“The first step to all of this is seeing what we can do this season, then procuring a coach in the off-season and adding the team after that. Dr. Buss wants to win in the worst way,” he said. “You think I’m having a tough time, he’s having a harder time than I’m having. He lives and dies with the Lakers. It’s been painful for him. I just hope they can turn around just to see him smile and have a better time. He takes every game to heart.”

As for procuring that coach, Johnson doesn’t find Jackson’s possible return to the Lakers as far-fetched as some might think.

“I could see Phil coming back,” he said. “He knows this team is capable of winning. I’m sure that Mitch and Dr. Buss will talk to Phil. We have some good parts that could fit into his triangle offense. We won’t take that long to get back to being one of the best teams.

“If this were to happen, if it’s what Dr. Buss decided to do and it’s what Phil wants to do, they’ll have to have a conversation with Kobe to clear the air as far as the comments in his book. Kobe’s mature enough to handle that, and he wants to win. If you’re just dealing with one guy, and that’s Kobe, you could get by that and get going.

“The city offers Phil a lot. He loves L.A. What it’s going to come down to is the [New York] Knicks and Los Angeles, and if the organizations want him and if he wants the organizations.”

The hazards of coaching the Lakers aren’t lost on Johnson, who had a 5-11 record after replacing Randy Pfund at the end of the 1993-94 season. At the same time, Johnson said he had little inkling of Tomjanovich’s declining physical and mental state that led him to resign unexpectedly on Feb. 2.

“When you’re stressed, you really hold it in a lot,” Johnson said. “Especially in sports and in this league, you can’t show your team that you’re stressing. He held it in. That’s what probably made it worse for him.”

As such, Johnson said he would not be the Lakers’ coach next season.

“It definitely won’t be me, that’s for sure,” said Johnson, who serves as an analyst for TNT when he’s not opening restaurants or movie theaters. “We just now have to focus on the second half of the season. We’ve got to win eight or nine games in a row.”

The Lakers haven’t won more than two in a row, but Johnson said, “We can’t panic and make moves just to make moves. We have to be smart about it.”

One of the teams the Lakers have fallen behind is the Phoenix Suns, who have a 41-13 record and are 13 games ahead of the Lakers in the Pacific Division while averaging 110.2 points a game.

The Suns are what Buss hoped the Lakers would be this season, a fastbreaking offense that captured the interest of fans and kept turnstiles clicking. But the Lakers are 12th in scoring at 97.8 points a game, leaving the Suns as the epitome of what the Lakers used to be. At the very least, they remind Johnson of the “Showtime” Lakers that won five championships in the 1980s.

“No question about it, they’re the closest to how we used to do it,” he said. “Now we have to see if they’re going to be the closest in the playoffs as well.”

When Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal were teammates and the Lakers were hoisting championships banners three years in a row, NBA Commissioner David Stern once said the highest-rated championship series would be if the Lakers played the Lakers.

But sales of Laker jerseys have tumbled and the lack of a winning Laker team has hurt the league, Johnson said.

“No question about it,” he said. “They definitely need the Lakers to be good. You can’t have the Knicks and Lakers and [Boston] Celtics be bad. That hurts everybody.

“The Lakers right now, that’s the world’s team. They’re not just Los Angeles’ team or the United States’ team, they’re the world’s team. Any country I go to, the most jerseys I see are Laker jerseys. They’re dominating. In sports, there’s only two teams that have that branding -- the New York Yankees and the Lakers.”

The Lakers went 893-364 during Johnson’s playing career, and while matching that mark might be a ways away, Johnson remains optimistic.

“We could definitely get back to that, and we’re going to get back to winning and doing it on a consistent basis night in and night out,” he said. “You’re going to see that happening. Now it’s just when is that going to happen?”