The Los Angeles Lakers have wanted to be supportive of LaVar Ball's business ambitions. Their original plan was to let LaVar market his family but his criticism of Luke Walton has been difficult for the team to deal with.

"I got a special relationship with LaVar," Johnson said. "I think he understands ... I just want the best for him. For his son. I told him, 'I've been down this road that your son is about to go down, so you got the best person sitting here. So what I need you to do is just worry about the business side. Let me take care of the basketball side.'"

When LaVar Ball criticized Walton from Lithuania, sources say Johnson called an associate of the patriarch to admonish him. But the Lakers said nothing publicly.

"Look, we had lost nine in a row and you didn't hear nothing from me, right? I was supporting Luke through all nine in a row," Johnson says. "So now, LaVar comes out and says something, and everybody asks, 'Why didn't you say nothing?'

"I'm not gonna respond to people saying different things. [Walton] already had my vote of confidence. There's never been a question about his job security here. But everybody else was trying to make a big deal out of it. I was good with Luke, I was good with Jeanie. So I said we should do nothing because if we react to this, now any time somebody says something about the Lakers, we gotta react.

"We know what we have, we know who we are. And the team responded, and we're better. So I'm happy we just didn't jump out there."