Following Magic Johnson’s shocking resignation earlier this month, Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka is expected to step into a larger role within the team’s basketball operations department and could even replace Johnson. However, before his meteoric rise to the top of the Lakers’ brass, Pelinka was an agent, with his most notable client being Los Angeles basketball icon Kobe Bryant.
Bryant spoke with Sam Amick of The Athletic about the first time he heard of Pelinka’s desires to run an NBA basketball team, and it sounds like he was a skeptic:
“We had a pipe dream in 2003,” Bryant told The Athletic back in October.