Things move quickly in the basketball world, but you’d struggle to find something happening as fast as the selling of the Lakers.
Mark Walter officially became the majority owner of the Lakers in October of last year and has sold it to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner for a record $12.5 billion.
There wasn’t even a whiff of a rumor about the franchise being up for sale, making this one of the most shocking deals in NBA history. But was Walter quietly shopping the Lakers to billionaires for months, negotiating
this high sale number?
Well, no.
Apparently this all got done in a span of a couple of days. In an interview with Khobi Price of the California Post, Iger described how it all went down.
“We were involved in pursuing the new franchise in Vegas,” Iger said during an exclusive phone call with the California Post. “And while that happened, it was suggested to us that maybe Mark Walter would be interested in selling his stake in the Lakers. And we immediately decided that given the value of the franchise and the iconic nature of the team, that we would be really smart to pursue it. The deal came together in three days. It’s that simple.”
Iger and Kushner wanted to own an NBA team. And after dealing with the apparent bidding wars happening with the Las Vegas expansion, they opted to just buy a ready-made franchise in the Lakers. From their perspective, this sale makes sense.
Still, 72 hours is such an insane turnaround for a deal this huge. But Dan Woike, Sam Amick and Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic reported the same timeline of events.
According to one source with knowledge of the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the agreement, Kushner reached out to Walter on Friday and the deal quickly came together over the weekend.
All of this happening in such a short period of time is mind-boggling. I mean, didn’t Walter have to think about it for a while? Sure, a $2.5 billion profit in less than a year’s time is great, but were the Lakers just a vessel for him to store his money?
It just seems like a historic franchise like the Lakers should’ve been treated with more care and consideration, not flipped like they are an investment property.
And yet, here we are with new owners for the second time in barely more than a year.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
