How Mark Walter’s billions could help the Lakers gain an edge on the court

The mom-and-pop Lakers are soon to be no more, which should only help their on-court product moving forward.

Amidst a nonstop deluge of trade, draft and free-agency rumors, Slop SZN delivered a true bombshell on Wednesday: The Buss family is selling majority ownership of the Lakers to minority owner Mark Walter at a record-setting $10 billion valuation.

Walter initially purchased 26% of the Lakers in 2021, which also gave him the right of first refusal on the majority share of the team. According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, the Buss family “will keep a minority share of the team, just over 15%, for a period of time” following the sale.

The Lakers aren’t the first L.A.-based team that Walter has purchased. He’s been the controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers since 2012, during which time they’ve won 11 NL West titles and two World Series while routinely ranking toward the top of MLB in roster payroll. His tenure with the Dodgers earned him respect from Lakers legend Magic Johnson, who expressed his excitement about the sale Wednesday.

Walter won’t be able to outspend other NBA owners in quite the same fashion as he has in MLB. The NBA’s latest collective bargaining agreement introduced harsh team-building restrictions for the most expensive rosters in the league, as the Phoenix Suns can begrudgingly attest.

The Lakers might be less inclined to outright duck the luxury tax once Walter takes over, but they don’t figure to stay above the second apron year after year just because Walter can afford the tax bill. Having their first-round pick automatically moved to the bottom of the first round is incentive enough to drop below that line eventually.

However, Walter’s fortune can make a major difference for the Lakers off the court. There’s no salary cap for head coaches, front office executives or other team personnel, so he can bid up the price on the best of the best around the NBA.

Under the Buss family, the Lakers “were not known as one of the league’s most aggressive investors into front office and coaching talent,” according to Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic. As ESPN’s Tim Bontemps and Dave McMenamin noted following the sale, the Lakers’ negotiations with potential head coach Ty Lue in 2019 “stalled in part over money,” as Lue reportedly wanted a five-year deal with a $7 million annual salary, whereas the Lakers only offered him a three-year deal with a $6 million annual salary.

Citing a publicly available media guide, Vorkunov noted the Lakers have only 56 employees in their basketball operations department. The Oklahoma City Thunder, who are one win away from this year’s NBA championship, have 88, while the New York Knicks, who advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals this year for the first time in a quarter-century, have 92. Once the NBA’s board of governors approves Walter’s purchase of the Lakers, he can get to work quickly beefing up their front office, coaching staff and scouting department.

“It will be interesting to see if the Lakers can become what everyone thinks they have been, which is this cash cow, spend money at all costs, do whatever it takes to win,” a league source told Bontemps and McMenamin. “The Yankees and Lakers have always been put in the same class, but it’s not the same. I’ve never worked in baseball, but they’re not the Yankees.”

According to Andy McCullough and Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic, the Dodgers introduced this season “what they’ve called a first-of-its-kind travel system to transport their massive traveling party; the players take one plane, and the rest of the staff takes another.” They also renovated their home clubhouse, including “adding saunas and restrooms to go with Japanese-style toilets that helped sway coveted Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki to sign with Los Angeles.”

This sale couldn’t have come at a much better time for the Lakers, who pulled off the heist of the century at February’s trade deadline to acquire Luka Dončić from the Dallas Mavericks. Whether it’s this coming season or next, LeBron James’ time in the NBA is nearly complete, so the Lakers will soon be transitioning from James as their centerpiece to Dončić. As of now, they could have enough cap room to sign a free agent to a maximum contract in 2026 if James decides to retire after the 2025-26 campaign.

Granted, the Lakers need to get Dončić to sign on the dotted line of a new extension first. Fortunately, a source close to Dončić told Bontemps and McMenamin that “Walter’s deep pockets, combined with his results with the Dodgers, makes L.A. that much more appealing for the 26-year-old superstar.” And Luka himself expressed excitement about the future of the Lakers.

Again, the new CBA was effectively designed to prevent someone with the GDP of a small country from buying a team and wildly outspending other owners on team payroll. If Walter takes after Phoenix’s Mat Ishbia and develops a raging case of “new owner syndrome,” Lakers fans may soon find themselves yearning for the Buss family again, random Kurt Rambis cameos and all. Luckily, his steady, pragmatic organization-building approach with the Dodgers suggests that likely won’t be an issue here, either.

“A key difference between baseball and basketball is that you can’t simply outspend everyone on payroll the way the Dodgers do,” an NBA executive told Vorkunov. “But what most people overlook is how much the Dodgers invest beyond just players. They spend at an elite level on infrastructure: front office talent, analytics and player development. Each area is essentially run by a GM-level executive, enabling them to retain top-tier personnel across the board.”

If the Lakers modernize their behind-the-scenes infrastructure under Walter while having Dončić to lure marquee free agents and the overall prestige of the organization’s brand still working in their favor, they might be able to go on a Dodgers-esque rampage in the latter half of the 2020s.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Salary Swish and salary-cap information via RealGM.

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