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Traina Thoughts: Magic Johnson Quits Lakers' Job to Tweet More and Twitter's Reaction Was Top Notch
1. Tuesday night was a good night on Twitter dot com.
Not only did Magic Johnson resign from his job as president of basketball operations without telling his boss, he cited his desire to tweet more freely as a reason for walking away from his gig with the Lakers.
That last part is what I want to focus on today. One of the greatest athletes of all time, a five-time NBA champion, three-time MVP and 12-time All-Star, has quit his job, at age 59, so he can pound out 240-character missives on his iPhone to share with the world. What makes this even more hilarious is that Johnson is one of the worst celebrity tweeters on the platform. Granted, Johnson's tweets are so bad they're good, but I'm not sure Magic understands that.
Naturally, this was the perfect storm for Twitter and the reaction to this bombshell was sensational.
2. The newest Sports Illustrated Media Podcast features two interviews. First up is a conversation with columnist Ray Ratto. Following Ratto, MLB Network’s Lauren Shehadi and Robert Flores join the podcast.
Ratto talks about being laid off from his job at NBC Bay Area in January, the state of the sports media business, the problem with podcasts, The Athletic’s business model, Twitter, why he hates compliments and much more.
Shehadi and Flores discuss their daily show MLB Central, how MLB can capture a younger audience, Mike Trout’s marketability, bat flips, personalities of baseball players and more.
3. How does Mike Francesa STILL not understand that his show is recorded every day and if he lies, the world will know about—just like this.
4. Speaking of mistruths, Anthony Davis claims he had no idea he was wearing a "That's All Folks" shirt to his final game as a Pelican on Tuesday night. Hmmm...
5. Former Cowboys receiver Cole Beasley, who signed with the Bills this offseason, doesn't think Jerry's World is all it's cracked up to be.
6. In case you missed this wild story, an Astros fan is suing the team because she got a broken finger when a T-shirt was shot into the crowd by the team's mascot. SI's legal analyst Michael McCann has a tremendous breakdown of the lawsuit.
7. RANDOM YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE DAY: ESPN and TNT would be wise to make Dirk Nowitzki a contributor to their NBA shows next season.
Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on iTunes, Spotify or Google Play. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.
IN CLOSING: I hope all my sports media colleagues get a good night's sleep tonight, because they have four strenuous days of rooting for Tiger Woods coming up.
