The Los Angeles Lakers are transitioning into the storied franchise’s next era of basketball both on and off the floor.
Luka Doncic’s arrival gives the purple and gold its next superstar to build around, but off the court the team has new a majority owner in Mark Walter.
Walter also owns the Los Angeles Dodgers, a franchise that has become the gold standard in MLB and the envy of professional sports teams because of how well set up they are to win championships every year.
With the Lakers and Dodgers under Walter, the two franchises are starting to integrate and collaborate closer together. Even team personnel is starting to cross over as Walter named Lou Rosen as the Lakers’ new president of business operations with Tim Harris leaving at the end of the 2025-26 season.
Rosen previously served as the Dodgers’ executive vice president and chief of marketing, but also has a close relationship with Magic Johnson dating back to their time with the Lakers. Rosen previously worked with the Lakers and then was Johnson’s agent.
While Rosen will be taking over more responsibilities with the Lakers, he confirmed that Johnson will not be returning in any sort of official capacity despite being around the team like he always is, via Dave McMenamin of ESPN:
“Earvin is one of the most unique individuals I’ve known in my life, and he’s one of my closest friends,” Rosen said. “I’ve known him since we were both 19. Earvin’s involved with all types of things. He owns football teams, baseball teams, soccer teams, insurance companies, a lot of things. He’s always going to have some type of involvement with all the teams, but he is not going to have a day-to-day involvement. It’s going to be no different since he left the Lakers.
“Obviously, he’s a huge fan of the Lakers, but he’s not going to be, ‘Hey, Rob, go sign this player. Do that.’ He’ll always be involved with all the teams that he’s involved in, but no, he’s not going to have day-to-day involvement, at all. He is a super Laker fan and he’ll continue to be a super Laker fan. It’s not bad to have that.”
Johnson was the Lakers’ president of basketball operations for two seasons before unexpectedly resigning, but has remained an ardent supporter of the franchise. As Rosen mentioned, Johnson is now a part owner of several professional sports teams and will continue on cheering the Lakers from the sidelines.
More changes to the Lakers organization will be happening in the coming months and it’ll be interesting to see how things shake out.
Lou Rosen confirms Rob Pelinka will continue to lead Lakers front office
New leadership generally means changes to a team’s front office and staff, but Lou Rosen actually confirmed that Rob Pelinka will continue to lead the Lakers’ front office. However, Rosen did mention that Dodgers’ executives Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi will be around to assist so Pelinka should at least have more support when making decisions.
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