When Los Angeles Lakers legend-turned-business mogul Magic Johnson accused general manager Rob Pelinka of “backstabbing” and “lying” on him, some chalked it up to a scorned man emerging from a failed professional relationship.
But Pelinka, who has had a disastrous tenure as general manager of the Lakers, has earned a reputation within the team and throughout the league as disingenuous at best and as a blatant compulsive liar at worst, according to ESPN and Johnson.
ESPN obtained a video in which Pelinka, who used to be Kobe Bryant’s agent, was caught lying about setting up a dinner meeting between Bryant and The Dark Knight star Heath Ledger.
Ledger was given the posthumous Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as the Joker in that movie.
Speaking in front of the entire team in March 2018, while standing alongside guest speaker Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Pelinka shared this fictional anecdote.
“There was one time when Kobe, who I worked with for 18 years, was going back to play in Madison Square Garden, and he had just seen The Dark Knight,” Pelinka told the team. “Obviously, you guys saw that movie, and he’s like, ‘Hey, hook me up with dinner with Heath Ledger because he got so locked into that role. I want to know how he mentally went there.’ So, he had dinner with Heath, and he talked about how he locks in for a role.
“And Kobe used some of that in his game against the Knicks.”
The problem with that story is the fact that Ledger had been dead six months before the July 2008 release of the film. And folks closely associated with Ledger at the time said that no such meeting was ever talked about, much less took place, ESPN reports.
Check out the video of the lie below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6bXM-rATZo
