After Mark Walter officially bought a majority share of the Los Angeles Lakers this past October, he began the process of modernizing how the franchise is run. A number of people were hired to important front office positions, and fans started to feel optimistic about the direction the team was headed.
But that process is now in flux after Walter agreed to sell that majority stake to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger last week. To add even more uncertainty to the whole situation, five of the six Buss siblings voted to sell their remaining 17.8% share in the Lakers to Kushner and Iger on Monday.
Although Ramona Shelburne of ESPN said that the process of mirroring how the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Major League Baseball team Walter owns, run things will continue
for now, another report indicated that the progress the front office has made may be halted. Dan Woike of The Athletic wrote that the belief around the NBA is that the Lakers cannot continue to hire people for important positions until their ownership situation is resolved.
"According to a pair of league sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to publicly discuss the Lakers’ internal operations, there is a belief around the NBA that the team cannot complete the buildout of its basketball operations department until the ownership situation is resolved. After laying out a vision for a pair of assistant general managers, with one focused on analytics and one focused on player scouting, the team has yet to make any inroads in pro scouting. With preseason games set to start in a little more than a month, filling a staff and getting everyone accustomed to a system was already going to be difficult. Now it feels like a distant hope more than a reality."
In recent months, Los Angeles had hired Tony Bennett, a four-time ACC Coach of the Year who coached the University of Virginia to the national championship in 2019, to be a draft advisor. Rohan Ramadas, who was described as a "literal rocket scientist" by one source, was also brought in to be an assistant general manager and focus on analytics and the salary cap.
A number of other people were hired to handle different roles in both the basketball and business side of the organization after Walter's purchase went through.
Iger told the California Post late last week that it is "premature to speculate" on any possible plans as far as hires or changes.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: People around NBA believe Lakers can't build front office until sold
