With the Lakers’ 2025-26 ending after their Game 4 loss to the Thunder on Monday, there will be a period of “deconstruction”, as president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka put it, to figure out how the franchise can elevate itself after a four-game sweep at the hands of the defending champions.
But there will also be a wide variety of reconstruction: Inside the team’s El Segundo practice facility; on the roster; and in the front office.
The front office has already witnessed changes over the last several months since Mark Walter, the Dodgers controlling owner, officially purchased the team in October.
And there are more to come, with Pelinka saying on Tuesday during his joint end-of-season media availability with coach JJ Redick that the organization is currently in the interview process for two assistant general managers.
One assistant general manager will work in “player draft and evaluation processes”, according to Pelinka, which will include pro scouting, draft scouting and player development.
The other assistant general manager will be more on the “strategy side”, which entails cap, analytics and data.
Pelinka’s comments on Monday were aligned with what he said in February. He told reporters then that he and Jeanie Buss, the Lakers governor and former majority owner, will lead the offseason changes with Walter’s support.
“It’s not that we’ve had holes in those places,” Pelinka said of the assistant general manager hirings. “We got a great team of people that work incredibly hard. It’s just we want to add more to that and for both those [assistant general manager] positions we have started a wide search and have begun interviews, but haven’t hired out either of those.”
The Lakers made significant changes to their basketball operations in the fall, which included firing Joe and Jesse Buss from their front-office positions in November. Joey was the organization’s vice president of research and development, while Jesse was an assistant general manager and director of scouting.
The franchise also parted ways with most of their scouting department.
Since then, the Lakers have made several hires, including Lon Rosen as the president of business operations (replacing Tim Harris), Michael Spetner as the new chief strategy and growth officer (new position) and Ryan Kantor as the vice president of global partnerships (new role).
Rosen, Spetner and Kantor all previously worked for the Dodgers.
On the basketball operations side, the Lakers hired former Virginia men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett as an NBA draft adviser in February.
Dodgers executives Farhan Zaidi and Andrew Friedman joined the Lakers in advisory roles in November.
Pelinka said the Lakers have made “numerous” other hires, but said they don’t publicly announce the addition to the data, strategy, analytics, scouting and medical scouting teams.
But at the forefront of the Lakers’ front office changes will be the hiring of the assistant managers who’ll report to Pelinka, who was promoted to his current role as president along with his role as general manager as part of contract extensions he and Redick received last year.
“Those will be two key pillars that we’ll add for this offseason,” Pelinka said.
Inside of the building, there will be other changes the Lakers hope to benefit from that don’t have anything to do with roster changes.
With the Lakers’ G League team relocating to Coachella Valley, the Lakers will have more space to enhance their practice facility.
“We have a space in the back where working in collaboration with some of the Dodgers folks, we’re bringing in a biomechanics lab, new movement labs, a recovery lab, those things are super expensive to do and super thoughtful, but we’re doing the planning with Lon and his team around that and that construction is going to happen this offseason,” Pelinka said. “They’re going to be redoing aspects of the court as well. It’s a full rebuild and retool, and it’s adding to the great things that are already here, which have led to success, but elevating it and bringing it to the next level. So an ongoing process that we’ll be doing throughout the offseason. Probably, hopefully, culminating in and around the summer league in Vegas.”
The Lakers will look different next season – well beyond the expected roster changes.
And they’re hopeful those changes will provide them with the foundation of getting closer to competing for a championship, and achieving “sustained excellence”.
