During an appearance on ESPN’s Get Up, Magic Johnson talked about how he tried to facilitate a sign-and-trade for DeMar DeRozan to end up with the Los Angeles Lakers. Johnson blames LeBron James for the decision that resulted in the Lakers instead trading Kyle Kuzma and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope as part of a package for Russell Westbrook while also letting go of Alex Caruso.
In Johnson’s scenario, the Lakers would have acquired DeRozan while also trading for Buddy Hield. It is unclear what the Lakers would have had to send to the San Antonio Spurs for DeRozan, which would have also subjected them to the hard cap.
“The blame that he’s got to take is the fact that DeRozan ended up in Chicago and not with the Lakers,” said Johnson. “DeRozan wanted to play for the Lakers and when I got the call from his agent, I called the Lakers, said, ‘Hey, he wants to come home.'”
“We could’ve made that deal. But when Russell and LeBron started talking, that’s when they nixed that deal and went with Westbrook.”