Like most of the Laker fans I know, I was dismayed this week when news broke of Mark Walter’s sale of the Los Angeles Lakers to an ownership group led by Josh Kushner and Bob Iger. I think this negative emotion was understandable. Since his purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012, Walter has proven to be a model sports franchis owner, with the Dodgers first becoming a perennial championship contender, and then after winning the World Series in 2020, 2024, and 2025, a sports dynasty. When Walter bought the Lakers, the reaction from Lakers fans was almost universally positive, given his track record with the Dodgers.

While I think the sale is a negative for the Lakers, at least in the short term, I think that my initial reaction was likely too negative, and I want to lay out the case for the Kushner/Iger ownership group.

First, here’s why the negative reaction was partially justified: The Lakers had already begun the process of revamping the franchise and its operations on and off the court, so this ownership change is a major disruption of an in-progress plan. Not only did the Lakers change over most of their NBA roster this summer, the Walter ownership group had already done the same for the rest of the operations. Lon Rosen, the EVP and CMO of the Dodgers (and Magic Johnson’s former agent) took over as President of Business Operations for the Lakers as well. Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman and special advisor Farhan Zaidi both consulted with the Lakers as well. The Lakers moved their G League affiliate, the South Bay Lakers, out to Coachella so that their home, the UCLA Health Training Center could be converted into a massive sports performance facility for the Lakers and Dodgers.

Who knows what will happen with these massively disruptive and largely unfinished projects now that ownership is changing? At the very least, it’s hard to see the Dodgers loaning their top minds to the Lakers when the two franchises no longer share ownership.

But there are also compelling reasons why the initial fan reaction to news of the sale was too negative.

First, I, like most fans, were mourning what we thought was an ideal ownership situation: A stable, deep-pocketed owner with a track record of great success. But were we mourning an outdated vision? Yes, Walter’s ownership of the Dodgers has been a stunning success, but it’s not clear that the same would have been true for the Lakers. The Wall Street Journal reported that Walter suffered a stroke in 2024 while the Dodgers were playing (and beating) the Yankees in the World Series. A 66-year-old owner in good health is likely to provide stable leadership for at least a decade. A 66-year-old owner that has recently suffered a stroke is a different story. As for the depth of Walter’s pockets, Walter was also under investigation for unreported related-party transactions between insurance companies he controlled and other businesses he owned. Many (including me) are speculating that the Lakers sale might be a way of unwinding such loans or filling a liquidity gap.

The fact is that having worked so hard to buy the Lakers (Walter first purchased a minority interest in the Lakers from Philip Anschutz in 2021, so this pursuit has been happening this entire decade) it’s astonishing that Walter would voluntarily relinquish ownership of one of the crown jewels in the world of sports (the 17-time World Champion Los Angeles Lakers), especially since he has already reaped the benefits of owning the other crown jewel in the world of LA sports, the Los Angeles Dodgers. As unbelievable as it may sound, the $2.5 billion profit he stands to make on the sale is far too small to be a real motivation.

This means that the vision that I and most fans had in our heads of Mark Walter and Guggenheim providing stable, deep-pocketed ownership was probably an illusion. (There is one other possibility that takes us into conspiracy theory territory, which is that the sale is part of a larger backroom bargain with Donald Trump to sell the Lakers to his son-in-law’s family in exchange for ending the Federal investigation into Walter’s financial deeds, but that is speculation without any real reporting.)

Once we shed our idealized view of Walter’s future ownership of the Lakers, we can do a better job of appreciating the positives of the new ownership group.

First, I’m guessing that 20% of the Lakers purchase will come from Thrive Eternal (the rest will have to come from Kushner, Iger, and other individuals) Thrive Eternal is the latest part of Kushner’s investment empire, joining Thrive Capital (which has major investments in SpaceX, OpenAI, and Stripe) and Thrive Holdings (which will be buying companies and improving their operations with AI). The goal of Thrive Eternal is to permanently own unique assets that can compound over time and can’t be replicated by AI, such as sports franchises. The San Francisco Giants were its first investment, and the Lakers are its second. The participation of Thrive Eternal indicates that the ownership group is thinking very long term, and they could very well take an approach similar to Walter’s approach with the Dodgers, which is to invest in a “crown jewel” franchise and invest in making it even better (and thus more valuable).

Second, if you decided to design the perfect new NBA owner in a lab, you would come up with someone very similar to Bob Iger. Iger is a business titan who is renowned for his strategic brilliance (buying Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Fox), his relationship skills, and his adaptability. He has been working with the NBA since 2002, when Disney brought NBA games back to ABC and ESPN (Iger had been the head of ABC, and by 2002, was the President of Disney) and thus knows all the power players in the league. He is close friends with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who–and I am not making this up–introduced Iger to his wife, former “NBA Inside Stuff” co-host Willow Bay. Finally, he is a die-hard NBA fan, who has season tickets to both his childhood team, the New York Knicks, and his adopted team, the Los Angeles Clippers (I guess he’s going to give those up). He even has prior sports ownership experience; during his time at Disney, the company owned the Mighty Ducks and Angels, both of whom won championships during their time as Disney properties. The only downside with Iger is his age (75). Were he twenty years younger, he would pretty much be the perfect owner.

I’m still in shock, as are many of my fellow Lakers fans, but like Luka Doncic suddenly finding himself a Laker, when the initial shock wears off, I hope that we will end up having reasons to be grateful to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner. Just like we’re grateful to LeBron for bringing us the 2020 championship (with an assist from Bob Iger, who worked closely with Adam Silver and the NBA to host the “bubble” playoffs), hopefully we’ll be applauding as Luka, Iger, and Kushner raise the Commissioner’s Trophy for our 18th championship.