Rob Pelinka cannot reveal much about the Lakers’ pending ownership change, but his first conversations with prospective owners Josh Kushner and Bob Iger have been encouraging.
“We have had introductory meetings with Bob and Josh, and those have been excellent,” he said Thursday during his preseason media availability alongside coach JJ Redick. “With a pending transaction, we’re not at liberty to talk more about that under league rules. But we’ve had preliminary discussions with them that have been really, really positive.”
The $12.5 billion sale comes after Mark Walter purchased the Lakers from the Buss family for $10 billion last year. Despite another ownership transition, Pelinka said daily operations have continued without disruption.
“We’re operating with Lakers excellence. We’re continuing to build out a world-class front office. Proud of the people we’ve added, incredibly proud of the energy we’ve had upstairs. We’re super excited about the people upstairs, the coaching staff, the support staff, the roster. Nothing’s changed day-to-day.”
The Lakers have made more than 15 front-office hires in recent months, including assistant general managers Eric Amsler and Rohan Ramadas.
“Super appreciative of the support from Jeanie [Buss] and ownership to build out,” Pelinka said. “Really built out our strategy and analytics department, have hired two assistant general managers. Have more to do, and we’re actually continuing to do that. And then in terms of player services, as JJ said, we’ve really rebuilt our player experience and player development arm. With that comes new equipment, new recovery and modalities. We’ve worked with our training department to do that.”
Pelinka said Amsler, who spent more than two decades with Miami, will help oversee player personnel and several scouting areas, with additional hires still planned.
“You guys saw we hired Eric Amsler, who was with two decades with the Heat to kind of see over our player personnel, our draft scouting, our G League scouting and NBA scouting – we’re gonna be adding more scouts in those departments. That’s just one example of a sort of a vertical that we’ll continue to build. And there are others, too. But it’s been a really robust last two months. The players are already seeing the differences. And we’ll continue, like I said, to set the gold standard with the people we have upstairs.”
Another unanswered question involves Dodgers executives Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi, who have served as Lakers advisers. Pelinka could not say whether their roles will continue once the sale is completed.
“We can’t really talk in this interim period. There’s just a transaction that’s going on. I will say this, I’m super grateful for the opportunity to learn from incredible leaders like Andrew Friedman. And the reps and time and conversations we’ve had have been enriching for me. He does an incredible job. Good luck to the Dodgers in three-peating. So, we’ll see.”
