Magic’s spin on Dodgers keeps changing

“We want to win now.” That was Magic Johnson’s message after his Dodgers pulled off a nine-player trade with the Red Sox on Aug. 25, acquiring Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and injured Carl Crawford, a month after acquiring Miami’s Hanley Ramirez and Philadelphia’s Shane Victorino.

Magic also said at the time, “We’re not sitting back, waiting on next year or the year after.”

The Dodgers are 11-16 since the Boston trade, and Magic gave a recent interview to the Los Angeles Daily News offering a different spin: “We didn’t make the trades for this season. We made the trades for next season on, and we feel we’re really going to be a good baseball team.”

Now, both his bases are covered: the present and the future — and changing course is nothing new for an owner, especially one who wrote a $50 million check, as Magic did for his stake in the Dodgers.

But Magic also became the latest to play the chemistry card, telling the Daily News the Dodgers lack it, suggesting all the new bodies have made it tough to jell.

The fact is, good chemistry tends to correspond with the win total. The Dodgers’ dive is a result of a team-wide offensive slump, not a bunch of players being thrown into the mix and hurting chemistry.

The 2010 Giants added several players in the final months who contributed to a championship. In fact, Pat Burrell, Cody Ross, Mike Fontenot and Jose Guillen were credited with boosting chemistry — at least until Guillen’s HGH bust — and ditto for relievers Javier Lopez and Ramon Ramirez.

The Padres’ ace that year, Mat Latos, blasted the Giants for beefing up, saying the Padres “could be like the Giants and go and change our whole lineup, put guys with ‘San Francisco Giants’ across their jerseys.’ We didn’t.”

And they didn’t win the West, either.

Now the Dodgers are ruining the vibe with their additions? In baseball, much like Magic’s sport, players can ease in to a new team in midseason and succeed without a hitch. Chemistry hardly is to blame when you’re last in the league in slugging percentage and total bases and near the bottom in other key offensive categories.

Like Magic’s team.