{"id":810267,"date":"2026-08-12T23:33:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/810267\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T23:33:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:33:17","slug":"bob-iger-could-be-the-imagineer-to-lead-the-lakers-back-to-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/810267\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Iger could be the Imagineer to lead the Lakers back to glory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So instead of the Dodgerfication of the Lakers<\/a>, we\u2019re getting the Disneyfication of the Lakers.<\/p>\n

Hakuna Matata?<\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s weird and distressing, watching billionaires play catch with our ballclubs.<\/p>\n

But this high-stakes game of hot potato that resulted in Bob Iger<\/a> and Joshua Kushner<\/a> acquiring the Lakers for $12.5 billion<\/a> from Mark Walter<\/a> less than a year after the Dodgers owner bought the NBA team?<\/p>\n

For the Lakers, it really could end happily ever after.<\/p>\n

Because we\u2019re realizing you probably shouldn\u2019t put all your proverbial eggs \u2014 or both of a city\u2019s most beloved sports teams \u2014 in one guy\u2019s basket. Especially if that one guy happens to be at the center of a federal loan investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And if all it took, really, to get Walter to relinquish his ownership of the Lakers was $2.5 billion more than the reported figure he paid for them, then he wasn\u2019t the right owner for the franchise anyway.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t actually going to spin blue into purple and gold.<\/p>\n

And Disney did give us some pretty great stories under Iger, didn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

A native New Yorker, Iger, 75, grew up a Knicks fan. But he has also long been an L.A. basketball fan \u2014 though he has identified as a Clippers supporter. (Sorry, Clips, I think you\u2019re down a fan.)<\/p>\n

Lakers great Magic Johnson said he\u2019s known Iger since the Showtime era, and gushed in an interview Wednesday with The Times\u2019 Broderick Turner: \u201cThe great thing for Laker fans is Bob Iger loves basketball, loves the Lakers and I think that we couldn\u2019t have a better person.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody that don\u2019t know the Lakers, the tradition, that don\u2019t know the city, that don\u2019t know the passion that the fans have for the Lakers here in L.A.? Then I would have been like, \u2018Oh man. They gotta learn all that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Bob <\/p>\n

Bob Iger, then chief executive of Disney, addresses the media during the Star Wars: Galaxy\u2019s Edge media event in 2019.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cWell there\u2019s no learning curve for Bob.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Angelenos know Iger. We don\u2019t know Kushner except for his family ties. But Iger, we do.<\/p>\n

Walter isn\u2019t selling the Lakers to some rich guys without any L.A. cred. He\u2019s selling to a basketball fan whom we\u2019ve seen courtside at Lakers games. Someone who joined us in sharing our heartbreak on social media when Kobe Bryant died in 2020, calling him \u201ca friend and a fan of ours, full of life and taken from us too soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

We recognize Iger; he\u2019s the Disney guy. We know him for his successful tenures as chief executive of that beloved company, which were highlighted by innovative storytelling, savvy investment and expansion \u2014 including into sports. We know he helped turn ESPN into a TV juggernaut.<\/p>\n

Before the sale to Walter, the Buss family, which owned and ran the Lakers for 46 years, was having trouble keeping up in a booming NBA. Player salaries are capped, but ownership\u2019s resources matter much in terms of creating a competitive infrastructure of coaches, basketball operations, medical and scouting staffs.<\/p>\n

So we were looking forward to seeing sweeping improvements when Walter took control and provided the organization with a much-needed financial infusion. After all, his Dodgers have won three World Series crowns and clinched the National League West in 12 of 13 seasons since 2012, when he and his partners bought the club for a then-MLB record $2.15 billion.<\/p>\n

But as of Wednesday morning, we were still looking.<\/p>\n

We thought the new Lakers\u2019 regime would get to work without a second to spare. Yeah, they added a second row of seats courtside. And laid off more than a dozen employees.<\/p>\n

We expected they\u2019d beef up their scouting department. But they moved the G League team from the South Bay way out to the Coachella Valley, so even the most ardent fans in L.A. will have a hard time keeping an eye on the team\u2019s prospects.<\/p>\n

We expected, under Walter, that the Lakers would give their basketball brain trust an obvious boost.<\/p>\n

But they\u2019ve only flirted with filling the job of second assistant general manager. And they failed to poach anyone from the league\u2019s most innovative front offices like the Dodgers did when they hired Andrew Friedman. Their big get was Rohan Ramadas, from the \u2026 New Orleans Pelicans, a team that made the playoffs only twice in the last eight seasons.<\/p>\n

Iger and Kushner can do better. They better do better.<\/p>\n

\"Joshua <\/p>\n

Joshua Kushner, founder and chief executive of Thrive Capital, speaks onstage during the Big Bets panel at the Fortune Global Forum 2024.<\/p>\n

(Jemal Countess \/ Getty Images for Fortune Media)<\/p>\n

I think they will.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a fly-by-night proposition for Iger, who headed an effort by the Chargers and Raiders to build a stadium in Carson before Stan Kroenke built $5-billion SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Iger and his wife, Willow Bay, who is dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, acquired a controlling stake in the Angel City Football Club of the National Women\u2019s Soccer League for $50 million, pushing its valuation to $250 million, a record for a women\u2019s sports team.<\/p>\n

Angel City hasn\u2019t been winning, but they doubled the staff and wasted no time setting up a sizable new performance center at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. The WNBA\u2019s Sparks, which Walter has owned since 2014, are still waiting for their own practice facility, which is now finally under construction in El Segundo.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs lifelong NBA fans,\u201d Kushner and Iger said in a statement, \u201cwe are deeply honored for the opportunity to become stewards of the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most iconic sports franchises in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iger knows as much as anyone about successfully stewarding an iconic brand.<\/p>\n

Now he could be the Imagineer to bring the 17-time champion Lakers back to the happiest place on earth \u2014 the NBA\u2019s mountaintop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So instead of the Dodgerfication of the Lakers, we\u2019re getting the Disneyfication of the Lakers. Hakuna Matata? Yes,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,97244,61805,97245,23013,1836,8150,97240,97243,97241,97242,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,22699,6,5836,6817,37206],"class_list":["post-810267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-lakers","tag-basketball","tag-beloved-sport-team","tag-bob-iger","tag-booming-nba","tag-dodgers-owner","tag-fan","tag-guy","tag-iger","tag-imagineer","tag-joshua-kushner","tag-l-a-basketball-fan","tag-la","tag-la-lakers","tag-lakers","tag-lalakers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleslakers","tag-mark-walter","tag-nba","tag-nba-team","tag-ownership","tag-stadium"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117085156746353441","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}