Lakers Majority Owner Mark Walter Discussion

If you’re Rob you want one guy from the last regime you worked with that you can trust.

The Dodgers way is multiple execs. Andrew Friedman Brandon Gomes Farhan Zaidi


So having Rob as an oversee guy with Andrew popping in to report to Mark and then Farhan working with Rob on more of the day to day with the Rocket scientist and Kurt makes sense. And Tony Bennett to oversee the Draft and scouting. Is working with Rob and reporting to Mark Walter.

Mark has his guys who work for him that report to him that he trusts Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi and Tony Bennett.

He’s got the buisness guy Buisness side Lon Rosen.

I’m glad he did his biggest firings getting rid of the bussess Joey Jesse Buss and Jeanie Buss. Lowkey the two brothers were against him and not trying to f*** with him. And now he’s got full trust.

As long as Jeanie Buss is no longer in there with her dumb a** Alex Caruso. Then I’m down with that.

I’m just telling you as best as I see it now.

 

And of course Magic Johnson will do his job in his floor seats clapping eating popcorn and letting everyone know he’s the Owner. And Magic you stay right there.

 

I would recommend bringing in Troy Weaver for an assistant General manager role. He worked with Sam Presti in OKC if you want some of that Presti tree.

built that young trio in Detroit scouting. Cade Cunningham Jalen Duran and Amir Thompson.

 

i always assumed they'd be around for at least a little while. it's clear jeanie negotiated golden parachutes for her inner circle as part of the sale.

i didn't expect they'd still be in meetings with potential executive hires. i truly don't understand how that could be interpreted as anything other than new ownership being ok with them. if it was all just rob still loves them, new ownership could also just fire rob to solve this.

 

I think it’s a little bit of Kurt loves being part of the Lakers. He’s still Magics guy and Magic is in Marks ear. This could be just hey Kurt loves just coming to the office and sitting in on the meetings talking with the guys about the moves. He’s not making any trades. He’s an OG. And as much as Kurt is with the other crew and Rambi. Kurt has always been part of this s***.

Coached Kobe Shaq and Rodman after Taco Del Harris was fired.

stayed on Phil Jackson’s staff won championships with us. Went with Phil to New York and Derrick Fisher.

came back. And still in a front office role. He’s just here. At practice around the guys. At this point it’s probably what he just likes doing. And I’m sure Mark ain’t got a problem with it.

I assure you he’s not asking questions. The Golden parachutes I think him and Linda cleared millions.

So we’ll see. As I said Mark likes collaborative. A lot of guys. As you see with the Dodgers.

kind of like the warriors when they had Bob Meyers Jerry West and others in the front office it’s more then one. That’s why you see Toni Bennett here.

 

Some of that very well might have been Ryan West, who learned under the master HIS Pops.

 

For better or worse (probably worse), the Rambii are part of the brain trust that has been running the team. A lot of the guys that Walter has brought in on the business side thus far aren't basketball guys, so I guess there could be some value in keeping the old guard around for a little bit while the baseball guys get the hang of things/Walter is able to hire more actual basketball guys.

 

Was hoping to see Kurt as part of the collection since Rob now has someone new to sit next to him in the meetings. But sounds like the firings were on the business side, people who worked for Harris.

 

Golden Parachute with no say in anything is fine, for now.
On the business side of things, Jeanie is smart and surely fought for her besties, the Rambii.
What many would f us are dying to know is what decisions, good or bad, were the Rambii actually a part of deciding the outcome?

 

Hopefully the purge is not over yet

 

Not everyone has an LA Times subscription, so here's a good read copy pasted on Mark Walter. In Mark I trust .... kind of a DUH!

Lakers, will you step up to plate?

Bill Shaikin columnist

Here’s a bit of Dodgers trivia for the bandwagon fans in our midst: Who was the manager before Dave Roberts?

That was 11 years ago. He is Don Mattingly, who returned to Dodger Stadium last weekend as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Phillies were 9-19 when they fired Rob Thomson and replaced him with Mattingly. Entering Wednesday, they are 22-10 since then, a better record than the Dodgers have posted over the same span.

In Philadelphia, Mattingly got his chance because the Phillies were losing. In Los Angeles, Mattingly departed amid a run of winning.

For Mark Walter and what was then a new Dodgers ownership group, that was not enough. As Walter enters his first offseason as the Lakers’ controlling owner, it’s worth keeping that in mind.

“They have a hunger for victory that is the greatest I’ve ever seen, without exaggeration,” former Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti told me.

In two seasons with Rob Pelinka as president of basketball operations and JJ Redick as coach, the Lakers won division titles both times, failing to get out of the first round of the playoffs one year and failing to get out of the second round of the playoffs the next.

In 2013 and 2014, with Colletti as GM and Mattingly as manager in the first full seasons of Walter’s ownership, the Dodgers won division titles both times, failing to get out of the first round one year and failing to get out of the second round the other.

The Dodgers replaced Colletti with Andrew Friedman.

In 2015, the Dodgers won the division but failed to get out of the first round of the playoffs. Friedman offered Mattingly a short-term extension, and Mattingly opted for a long-term deal to manage the Miami Marlins.

After Walter and Co. took over the Dodgers, Mattingly told me, there was one year he thought he might be fired: 2013, when the Dodgers started 30-42 and fell 91/2 games out of first place in mid-June. The Dodgers then reeled off 42 wins in 50 games and won the division by 11 games.

He appreciated that Walter, team president Stan Kasten and eventually Friedman did not simply bring in a new manager at their first chance.

“You get to evaluate and see,” Mattingly said, “and you have your vision for where you want it to go, and sustain it. That’s the thing they’ve been great at: sustaining it. It’s been year after year. You can’t really doubt what they’re doing.”

Kasten’s first move was not to fire Colletti, but to ask what ownership could provide for him so that he could do a better job. The owners quickly responded by funding the addition of impact players (Adrián González and Hanley Ramirez), extending the contract of a popular homegrown player (Andre Ethier), revitalizing the Dodgers’ Latin American talent pipeline (Yasiel Puig and Julio Urías), renovating the clubhouse and, at Mattingly’s suggestion, refreshing the family room.

“We started to be able to compete with a different mindset, which was invaluable,” Colletti said.

Similarly, with Friedman and former Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi as consultants, the Lakers have added two positions for assistant general managers, overhauled the scouting staff, created more room at team headquarters by relocating their G League affiliate to the Coachella Valley, and borrowed from the Dodgers’ playbook in modernizing medical and biomechanical facilities.

This summer could be critical in determining the future of the Lakers, including who runs them. Walter can spend all he wants, as he does with the Dodgers, but the luxury-tax penalties in the NBA are more severe than in baseball and could restrict the roster flexibility so coveted by the likes of Friedman and Zaidi. A star-studded roster beyond Luka Doncic — say, a trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo? — could require the Lakers to sacrifice the draft picks that also would limit roster flexibility.

The Lakers will have the resources. Walter will want to see the creativity and the championships — or, at least, the path to them. Ultimately, he will decide what he did with the Dodgers: Does he have the best people he can get running the team?

“You see many organizations that win, and then they take a step back,” Colletti said. “They feel like they have some goodwill in the bank, they don’t have to chase the biggest free agents, and they don’t need to reinvest in the team or the stadium.

“From my vantage point, all the way up and down that organization and especially at the ownership level, it’s almost like they’ve never won, and they’re hungry to get there. To be there and be unsatisfied — that quest to be as great as you can be — is one of the great indicators of the excellent ownership it is.”

In the meantime, any advice for Pelinka and Redick? Colletti let out a hearty laugh.

“Do your best,” he said, “and turn it up a notch.”

 

It's hard for me to imagine his first FA period as the new owner that Walter lets the talent and strength and experience / leadership that LeBron brings .... leave the organization. And Mark is the King of figuring ways to entice and pay that kind of talent that, based on all descriptions of how he operates, is not going to prevent him from ALSO adding the other pieces one way or another we need to shore up weaknesses. IMO.