When Josh Kushner and Bob Iger agreed in principle to buy the Lakers from Mark Walter for $12.5 billion, they still had a lot of work to do.
For starters, they, obviously, did not have $12.5 billion simply lying around ready to transfer over to Walter. As is common practice in the modern world of franchise ownership, Iger and Kushner — and mainly the latter — would need to go around and add minority investors to reach that $12.5 billion figure.
Naturally, that’s going to all go on behind the scenes.
But notorious Celtics fan Bill Simmons seemed to have pulled the curtain back on some potential drama in his latest podcast episode on Friday when he encouraged people to aggregate that Kushner was struggling to find the money to buy the Lakers.
“The Lakers’ guy doesn’t have the money yet. That $12.5 billion he has to pay to Mark Walter? He’s still searching for five, six billion of it and doesn’t have it yet … Here’s the other thing. Guess who’s not putting in really any money. Bob Iger. He’s putting in the minimum. The minimum is like $63 million. That’s what he’s putting in. So Kushner has to find all this other money but this is a lot of money and the deadline is coming and I think they’re using the Buss family as scapegoats for why the deal’s dragging along. But he can’t find the other money. He needs to find like four, five billion-dollar guys that will come in and buy whatever percentage of the team.”
Well, it turns out that’s likely not true. Shocker.
While Simmons does still have sources around the league that are more often right than wrong, his green-tinted glasses got in the way on this one. Also on Friday, Ben Horney of Front Office Sports reported that Kushner are offering up stakes in the Lakers starting at $25o million and, more specifically, they’re not having any trouble finding takers.
The idea that Kushner is having trouble raising money for the deal is not true, one source tells FOS. There has been massive demand to get in on the Lakers deal, according to two sources, although it’s not clear who has expressed interest in buying in. The transaction could be completed within the next few months, one source says. Once the deal closes, Kushner will be majority owner, while Iger will be a minority owner and will oversee day-to-day operations of the team, the same source says.
And if you needed more reporting from a Lakers source, Dan Woike of The Athletic backed up Horney’s reporting that Kushner has plenty of interested parties.
Who could have guessed that the most valuable and popular franchise in the NBA, and one of the most in the world, is not having any problems getting people to buy in.
The Lakers are not in any sort of dire straits or even in a position of worry. When Walter agreed to buy the Lakers in mid-June, it wasn’t until the end of October that the sale became official. A similar timeline on this deal would mean the sale wouldn’t become official until late December.
Perhaps Simmons should just stick to trying to fix the Celtics with a dinner or rewatching old movies.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
