“I was cool with it, I was happy with it. I went somewhere where I was like, I’m a starter every night, gonna get my minutes, it’s a young team, I was happy.” Ivica Zubac was not one who considered his trade to the LA Clippers to be too disheartening. While it took him time to adjust to the new team after the Lakers traded him back in 2019, the Croatian eventually pulled himself up to become one of the reliable scorers for the Clippers. More than often, he has put out a stellar performance against LeBron James and Co. Maybe this is why he has managed to win 8 of his 10 most recent games against the Lakers.

If that wasn’t disheartening enough for the Lakers fans, Zubac’s recent performance would have been the final nail in the coffin for many of them.

The LA Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers competed for the 2 time this season, playing in the former franchise’s new Intuit Dome arena. With home-court advantage on his side, Ivica Zubac assisted in the offensive lead by putting out 21 points. However, that wasn’t the most impressive feat by the star, as he also recorded a whopping 19 rebounds! Locking down the paint went a long way in assisting the Clippers’ scoring effort, allowing them to win the matchup by a 14-point matchup.

With this win, Zubac and Co. have passed the Purple & Gold on the Western Conference points table to secure the 5 seed. One player’s name being called in another rival team’s loss is humiliating enough. However, the fact that the player was someone who earlier used to belong to that rival team makes things worse.

Therefore, it didn’t take long for Lakers fans to descend onto social media and share their reaction to the recent game.

Social Media Users Take Shots at Lakers Front Office Over Ivica Zubac’s Memorable Night: “Even Dumber Now”

The official X account of Lakers Nation wrote: “Still not over that trade. Was dumb then, is even dumber now.”

Several renowned news sites, including SB Nation, have called out Ivica Zubac’s trade to the LA Clippers among “the worst trades in NBA history”. After all, in exchange for the Croatian, the Lakers got Mike Muscala, who did not last with the Lakers for more than 5 months! A Zubac trade would have made sense earlier since he had only averaged 8.5 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 0.8 assists during the 2018-19 season. Now, with a resurgence in the Croatian’s performance, it would be hard for the Lakers front office to not have second thoughts.

One social media user took a shot at the team management by stating “Trade everyone owners included”.

Amidst the recent events, it was obvious that Lakers owner Jeanie Buss would come under criticism. After all, even if Zubac’s trade made sense before, his resurgence serves as a reminder of one of the team’s existing problems. The problem of being unable to find a suitable Center.

After the exit of both Zubac and Muscala, the Lakers have relied heavily on Anthony Davis to fulfill the Center needs. Alongside LeBron James, the veteran has certainly proven himself to be among the team’s leading scorers. However, his injury-prone history often comes to haunt him, with ailments forcing him to miss a streak of games from time to time. Furthermore, the player has reportedly been on the team’s case for quite a while to play fewer minutes as a Center. Therefore, the Lakers not having a dedicated center, while Zubac is establishing himself as one of the best ones in the league, would draw criticism.

One individual berated Magic Johnson over the Ivica Zuback trade. He wrote “This is on @MagicJohnson. It tells a lot, when you realize you gave up a then promising young big center for 2 players that are no longer in the league. Didn’t make sense then. Now, even more so.”

The Lakers legend served as the team’s president during the late 2010s. Therefore, he was heavily involved in the decision that eventually led to Zubac’s trade. Even as criticism came up about the decision, Johnson was amongst its staunchest defenders. Citing how it was LeBron James and Lonzo Ball who made Zubac better, Johnson stated “We knew we was going to use that cap space for a superstar. Now, I had to try and space the floor, so the trade I made, I wanted to make sure I could see if we could space the floor, and it didn’t work out. Now, Zubac has a long way to go to be special, but we had to try things. So that wasn’t a trade like we traded a guy to win a championship to the Clippers.”

That ‘long way to go’ remark may be something the 5x NBA champion may have regretted saying now.

One social media user wrote, “It was 6 years ago so who knows how it would have played out eventually, but if there’s a timeline where Zubac is the backup for AD, we sadly missed out on it.” The current backup Center for the Lakers, Jaxson Hayes, has averaged only 5.2 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 0.8 assists this season. At the same time, however, he is averaging 16.4 minutes this season, which is half of Zubac’s average playing time. Therefore, even though everyone would like to imagine a ‘What If’ scenario, it would be hard to know how the Croatian would have fared as Davis’s backup.

One individual took a shot at the Lakers GM by writing “Rob will probably get the Lakers another guard before the deadline before he gets a center.”

This remark comes weeks after the Lakers took in Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton as part of a trade with the Brooklyn Nets. Back in July, Rob Pelinka had highlighted the difficulties that would come in engaging in a trade during the coming months, since “I think we’ve talked about it before, where we’re now in the apron world”. Despite this, the Lakers did acquire a guard and forward, leaving potential that the same can happen for a Center too. Unfortunately, nothing highlighted by Pelinka shows the Lakers heading in that direction.

Overall, the majority of reactions took a negative stance against the Lakers’ management over Ivica Zubac’s trade. Whether they make up for it by bringing in a role player/reliable center is something that remains to be seen.