FIVE GAMES INTO last season, ownership of the Los Angeles Lakers franchise changed hands for the first time in nearly five decades. On Oct. 30, 2025, the NBA's board of governors approved the sale of the Buss family's controlling stake in the team at a record $10 billion valuation to businessman and Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter.
It was a unanimous vote and celebrated as a watershed moment in the sport. The league's glamour franchise had graduated from the mom-and-pop operation it had been since Dr. Jerry Buss purchased the team in 1979 and left it to his children and entered into the deep-pocketed world filled with tech giants, private equity firms and commodity brokers with a proven winner in Walter as their guide.
Walter, whose TWG Global group had since 2021 owned 26% of the team, was welcomed with open arms. Not only were his Dodgers on their way to back-to-back World Series titles -- giving the Lakers a glimpse of what they could achieve with his resources -- but he demonstrated a reverence for the past, vowing to keep Jeanie Buss as acting governor for at least five more years.
"On behalf of Lakers fans everywhere," Buss said in a statement, released shortly after the BOG meeting ratified the sale, "I am beyond excited about what our future has in store."
That future ending up lasting less than 10 months.
Walter sold his interest in the Lakers on Wednesday morning to venture capitalist Josh Kushner and former Disney CEO Bob Iger at a $12.5 billion valuation, sources told ESPN's Ramona Shelburne.
"Talk about a curveball," one agent who has had clients on the Lakers roster within the last five years told ESPN.