Rob Pelinka’s Lakers Future in Serious Doubt Unlike Jeanie Buss, Claims Stephen A. Smith

The LA Lakers were sold to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger for $12.5 billion on Wednesday. It was the most expensive sports franchise sale in history. New ownership typically means new questions about who stays.

Stephen A. Smith, speaking on his show hours after the deal broke, gave his take on at least one person running basketball operations.

“I think Rob Pelinka will not be there running basketball operations for the Los Angeles Lakers," Smith said (h/t TheNBABase). "I don’t believe that will happen moving forward. I think somebody like Jeanie Buss should be around."

LeBron James departed for Philadelphia on a veteran minimum deal. The roster rebuild around Luka Doncic remains incomplete. Multiple free agent targets, Marcus Smart, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jaylen Brown, all landed elsewhere.

Kushner and Iger moved from their Las Vegas expansion pursuit to buy the Lakers outright. Which means that they arrive with their own vision for the franchise, not an obligation to preserve the structure that produced a second-round exit and a six-year championship drought.

New owners rarely keep general managers they did not hire when alternative options exist. Pelinka has been with the franchise since 2017. That tenure is now a liability rather than an asset, according to Stephen A. Smith.

The alternative Smith mentioned was specific. And the timing of the name was deliberate. “Bob Myers gets on the scene making basketball decisions with the Philadelphia 76ers, and in a month he had Jaylen Brown and LeBron James on the squad. In a month.”

Myers joined the 76ers as president of basketball operations in June. He left the Warriors in 2023 after back-to-back championships, and his first month in Philadelphia produced exactly the kind of aggressive, high-impact roster assembly that the Lakers’ summer lacked.

“She’s the Matriarch”: Why Buss Survives While Pelinka’s Future Dims

Jeanie Buss has been involved with the Lakers since 1981 and has served as controlling owner since 2017. Her name is inseparable from the franchise’s legacy in a way that makes her removal a PR liability as much as an operational one.

"She’s synonymous with the Lakers and synonymous with the Laker brand, and she’s adored and revered and respected by everybody in the basketball community," Smith added. "She’s the matriarch of basketball as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think you lose somebody like that.”

Mark Walter’s abrupt exit came just ten months after acquiring a controlling stake from the Buss family. There has been speculation that the sale was accelerated by a federal investigation into alleged tax fraud at two of his insurance companies, giving Kushner and Iger the opening they needed to pivot from Las Vegas and go directly after the most valuable franchise in the league.

They move in with no pre-existing loyalties to the basketball operations staff and a blank slate on roster decisions. There's also a track record, through Thrive Capital and Iger’s Disney tenure, of identifying and hiring elite operators quickly.

The Lakers have a new price tag, new owners, and what looks increasingly like a new front office on the way.