At the beginning of the offseason, Los Angeles Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka spoke about the franchise intending to hire two assistant general managers to work alongside him. The Lakers hired Rohan Ramadas for one of those roles, being more on the strategy and analytics side, but the team still has yet to fill the other position.
The second assistant GM will be more focused on scouting and player development and it has come as a surprise around the league that the Lakers have yet to make that hire, via Dan Woike of The Athletic:
This has been a surprise around NBA circles, but the team has yet to fill the assistant general manager role they sought to handle player evaluation and development. The team was unable to land Minnesota executive Steve Senior or Philadelphia exec Prosper Karangwa.
They’ve been conducting interviews since before the end of the playoffs and still haven’t landed a candidate they want who wants to come to Los Angeles. The changes we know — Tony Bennett as a draft consultant and Rohan Ramadas as their assistant gm of strategy and data systems — plus the involvement of Andrew Friedman, Farhan Zaidi and Lon Rosen mean there are some new voices in the team’s huddles. Kurt Rambis, who has relationships with both the older regime and the newer one, is also still involved, per league sources granted anonymity to discuss the Lakers freely.
Much of the surprise likely has to do with the fact that the 2026 NBA Draft is set to take place and that assistant GM would be taking on a large role with all of the scouting and evaluations taking place. The Lakers had people in their sight, but were unable to pry them away from their current teams, leaving that role still unfilled.
It is also interesting to see that Kurt Rambis is still involved in the process. Rambis has long been one of the most trusted voices for Jeanie Buss and Pelinka. Even though Buss is still around as team governor, it was unclear whether someone like Rambis would retain a role under new owner Mark Walter, but that seems to be the case.
Ideally, the Lakers would have had all of these front office pieces in place prior to the draft, but that didn’t work out. Even still, those who are involved will need to be on the same page as the offseason begins to kick into high gear.
Latest prospects Lakers have worked out ahead of 2026 NBA Draft
The Lakers have brought in a wide range of prospects with the draft around the corner with the most notable recent player being Stanford guard Ebuka Okorie.
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