Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - How do Lakers Fans Feel About New Ownership? And Why the Sale Needs to Happen Quickly

Starting point is 00:00:00 Fans are starting to settle in to the news of the Lakers' second sale in a year and a half. And I can't say most of them are pleased. We'll explain next. You are Locked-on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for stopping my Lockdown Lakers, Brian Komenetsky, Andy Kaminetsky. Of course, the story that just keeps on giving this off-season and gets a little more intriguing every day.

Starting point is 00:00:36 as we learn more about the what will be the sale of the Lakers for the second time in less than a year and a half, this time from Mark Walter, who purchased the team from the bus family, to a group led by Josh Kushner, Venture Capitalist, and of course Bob Eiger, who was the head of Disney, actually twice was the head of Disney, I believe. And so he's been our boss on multiple occasions. Yes, he has. Wait a minute. That means Bob Eiger is responsible also for letting me go.

Starting point is 00:01:12 Bob Eiger has laid me off. What? He is also responsible for the times he brought us back. That's true. There have been a couple times due to essentially corporate layoffs, things like that, a pandemic. Brian has been let go, but we were always brought back. It's funny, too. Cushner is going to be the driving force behind the money.

Starting point is 00:01:36 of this thing, but it is widely expected that Bob Eiger is going to be the person that you see most often. You know, if they were to replace Jeannie Bus, for example, and send a new governor, a new gubna to all the NBA meetings and stuff like that, it would most likely be Bob Eager before it would be Josh Kushner. So like those kinds of dynamics are interesting, but, you know, we kind of keep learning a little bit more. not just about why Mark Walter sold the team, but also about the details. Who among us, Andy, hasn't accidentally misallocated or misrepresented or accidentally forgot the relationship between $20-something million? Billion, I should say. It happens to all of us.

Starting point is 00:02:33 I'm being so critical. I wish that I was in the position to be investigated or perhaps misallocating billions of dollars of loans. I just would love to be important enough that that would even be a possibility. Yeah, I mean, obviously the mechanics of sort of, I want to call it insurance fraud, but the alleged violations of Mark Walter in his business dealings, have as more information keeps coming out, whether it's Bloomberg or other, Wall Street Journal had a story about this on Thursday. It seems pretty clear that Mark Walter is trying to pay down these loans that are centered

Starting point is 00:03:19 around his insurance companies as quickly as possible and needed some liquidity in order to do that. The Lakers are, you know, they've got $12.5 billion for it. Interestingly enough, it also, I read, releases the some of the collateral that he used against the purchase of the Lakers, which could, in theory, free up more money and more cash for repair. I don't know if this will settle his problems with the government, but at the very least, the impression I'm getting from reading is step one is to try to get the money right before, you know, as quickly as you can't.

Starting point is 00:03:58 It's just feeling more and more. I mean, obviously there's going to be reporting that comes out. And we don't want to get definitively ahead of anything, but it is feeling more and more like this is a situation where Mark Walter was acting while under duress and over leverage. Right. The sale, you mean. The sale of the team as opposed to the insurance question. Right.

Starting point is 00:04:22 Just that this was something that he really did not want to do, but ultimately realized he not just needed to do, but needed to do it ASAFP. Like, I mean, when you were, even if you were to surprise the world by selling the Lakers in a, in a perfect, imperfect world version of this, you don't necessarily knock that thing out in 72 hours unless you feel like, no, really, I got to get going on this. Yeah, I mean, and we'll see. I mean, there's a lot of, if you're watching on YouTube, as we go live, you know, watching there, subscribe. make sure you never miss a start time of a show, obviously. Subscribe to the audio product as well on Apple iTunes or Spotify, however you get your podcast.

Starting point is 00:05:11 A lot of speculation on what's going on here. My very uneducated read is at the very least, you know, if you correct these, but they've already admitted error. Yes. By revising their books, they've admitted the errors. They didn't carry one hell of a one, man. Again, I was told there would be no man. easy mistakes to make. And so my guess is they are trying,

Starting point is 00:05:34 I don't know if this all meets the criminal standards of things or not, but it seems like the kind of thing the SEC could certainly find the bleep out of you for and the faster you fix it, perhaps the faster you can get to a resolution. So I think that's potentially part of it. But for, you know, I had an interesting kind of exchange with somebody on the YouTube channel in the comments section who was kind of taking us to task for saying that the most

Starting point is 00:05:57 important thing, you know, that the mechanics of what's happening to Mark Walter are kind of the least important thing for this story. And I want to be kind of... You said that or you said that or the audience? I did. I think from a Lakers fan standpoint,

Starting point is 00:06:12 it has the least amount of impact on what happens now other than maybe if you, depending on how deep into the rabbit holes you want to go and all these other things, maybe it influenced who actually got to buy the team. But what I think is really interesting for the Lakers is sort of how some of these things will play out and what that does for future planning. For example, I was reading on Thursday.

Starting point is 00:06:39 I think this is either in the journal or somewhere else. I apologize for it might have been Joe Popliano's newsletter where I got this. But some of those sources that some of the tax implications for Mark Walters say, are dependent on when he had when the sale actually goes through it he needs to wait a year from the time the sale officially happened to when it go to get certain tax advantages that could influence how quickly this all happens uh brian winhorst was on uh ESPN on thursday and noted that uh josh Kushner has to sell his shares as minority ownership of the heat before any of this can happen.

Starting point is 00:07:33 Well, obviously. I mean, that's not what I'm getting to. Wendy's point was that the heat are a very closely held organization. And the process of divesting those shares could be slower for a team like the heat than it would be perhaps a different team. So the speed with which that happens could, influence when the sale is finished. And that period in between now and when this sale is finished and,

Starting point is 00:08:11 you know, the new ownership takes over and you've got the people who are going to be signing the checks, actually signing the checks, that to me is one of the, like, the longer this goes, I think the worst it is for the Lakers, not from like a controversy standpoint, but just it kind of there's like a limbo that's attached potentially to this stretch of time that I would love to see them work through as quickly as possible. It wouldn't surprise me if, for example, a team like the heat and their ownership group recognizes the importance of when you have a team like the Lakers, which is the Tiffany franchise of the entire league, it could be worth your while to,

Starting point is 00:08:58 work with a little more speed than you otherwise might. Just because it does not do anybody any good to work any slower than need be, particularly for a team of this. Right. I mean, it shouldn't be that hard to find people who are interested. I think he's got something like 20%. It's like it's a pretty, it's not it's a healthy chunk of the heat that Josh Kushner owns.

Starting point is 00:09:25 Like there will be people who want to buy it. But these things take time. And like it was, you know, we'll move on to some of the, you know, some of the connections, some of the comments about Robin Jeannie that we've heard and and those kinds of things. But it's, it there is a, because this happened so fast, because it was legitimately like Bob Eager hears, you know, hey, Walter might be in a little more trouble than, you know, why don't you go kick on that door instead of this expansion thing?

Starting point is 00:09:54 He, you know, this all happened so quickly. nobody's had time to really plan. Nobody's had time. There's a lot more structure that needs to be put together and details. That just normally you'd be further along in this kind of process because there's been weeks of speculation or bidding or all these other things. It's happened so quickly there will be certain things that will take time. I mean, to that point, Kobe Price got some comments from Bob Iger for the California Post.

Starting point is 00:10:25 that's what covers the Lakers for. And Bob Eiger said we were involved in purchasing a new franchise in Vegas. And while that happened, it was suggested to us that maybe Mark Walter would be interested in selling his stake in the Lakers. And we immediately decided that given the value of franchise, the iconic nature of the team, it would be really smart to pursue it. The deal came together in three days. It's that simple.

Starting point is 00:10:46 But then he went on to talk about how they don't even necessarily have a firm vision of You know, I'm sure they have a vision of what they want to do, sort of 5,000 foot, try to maintain the success of, you know, this historic franchise, find the best people, yada, yada, yada. But as far as some of the more granular details of the vision, in so many words, Mark, Bob Eiger said, we really have not had time to drill down on on that. We were figuring out, can we buy this thing first, which we were not expecting to do. And I want to make sure that we end up talking about, I put up a poll on the YouTube channel asking fans how they think about it and to sort of take the temperature of the fan base with this pretty shocking news.

Starting point is 00:11:40 And I understand why, spoiler alert, most fans seem to be somewhere between pessimistic and no have been clue what to think. I understand why comments like that from Iger don't reassure them at all, but in any real world, there is no, there is no alternative to that. And again, you know, we'll get to the poll next because I think that's another, the evolution of Lakers ownership here is just, it's a fascinating story and deeply impactful the Lakers fans. But again, these are all just things that have the potential to extend the timeline between the closing of this sale, the moment we were in this week to the closing the sale. And it's a fundamentally

Starting point is 00:12:26 different experience than the first time when the Lakers were selling to Mark Walter, who was already part of the ownership group and was already integrated into the organization. This is a very different thing and could have a very different impact. So we'll talk about a little more about that. We'll certainly talk about the poll and how Lakers fans are reacting. Next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Odu, running a business should not feel like you're trying to connect a bunch of systems that were never designed to work together, one app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales. So none of them talk to each other, and that's where Odu comes in.

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Starting point is 00:14:39 from the chat board but I will say this the part that I think is that that is relevant to what you were saying before about this reaction from fans is BCNLU in reference to this sale in the the ownership group. This is an unmitigated disaster. My comment back to him was, we don't know. It's not ideal to have the team sold again in 15 months. It's not what I mean. It would be better if Mark Walter and they had the continuity and Mark Walter's finances were fine and they could just everybody could carry on in the way that we thought it was going to be when he bought the team in the first place. That part I even, okay. But we don't know. if this ownership group is going to be good or bad.

Starting point is 00:15:26 We don't, we frankly never really got to find out if the Walter ownership group was going to be good. We didn't have enough time. They didn't know. Mostly what we saw was them hiring guys from the Dodgers. And whether, whether they're good hires or not, we didn't really get to see a grand vision of what they would do beyond bringing a lot of the people from the basketball side. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:15:49 They were very aggressive. And this is exactly what happened when he took over the Dodgers, too. There's, I think, a memory of, you know, because it's been so long and so successful, oh, they brought Andrew Friedman. It took a couple of years before they really started messing with anything on the baseball side of things. They revamped the business side very quickly. And that's what they were doing with the Lakers. The part, though, that, you know, I think it's, it is perceived as,

Starting point is 00:16:21 as really bad, A, because it's just shocking. But also, I'm curious what you think. But in my mind, this is the first time that Lakers fans in their relationship to ownership have kind of been made to be like fans from every other market, where your owner isn't interested in buying the Lakers. These are two guys who just wanted to buy a team. Like they've been looking for teams. Bob Eiger's been trying to buy a team, any team for years.

Starting point is 00:17:01 They were on the hunt for an expansion team. And then realized if we're going to spend this much money to buy an expansion team and then have to build that brand, we should take a crack at buying the Lakers, especially given what Mark Walters going through. But you and I have talked, I mentioned this on Thursday's full show. And the idea that it, the Lakers feel like they got flipped as an organization. And you can say that they were not technically flipped because flipping a business, flipping a house, whatever, the true definition of it is going in with that intention.

Starting point is 00:17:40 And Mark Walter was not planning on selling his team. But functionally, they got flipped. Like, that is what happened. Los Angeles like if nothing else. It's really no different functionally, whether that was Mark Walter's intention or whether he got sucker punched by the breath of this investigation and how much hot water he may be in. Like whatever the impetus for the flipping, that is how it feels. And that is not something Laker fans are used to, A, because of the prestige of this organization, but B, it's spent. since 1979, multiple decades with not just one ownership group, but it was a family.

Starting point is 00:18:28 Like it was a family that we knew the people involved with it. Like in a lot of ways, it felt like our super rich, super dysfunctional family that happened to own the thing that we all loved. And you know, I say this as somebody who's been a diehard Laker fan for multiple decades myself. And you go from that. to Mark Walter, that's obviously different, but his group at least had Los Angeles ties, and they had ties to the Dodgers, and they had ties to the city, and they were already inside

Starting point is 00:19:02 the building. So if nothing else, it was different, but it felt somewhat familiar, and in a lot of ways, an upgrade, because our favorite dysfunctional family, as much as we loved them, didn't have the money to keep doing this. It was a modernization of the ownership structure in a way that allowed people, you know, we'll talk about this in a second, but allowed people to feel like they still had, you know, a local owner, still somebody, but get all the bells and whistles and the money you need to really compete. Right. And now you end up in, in a span of less than a year and a half being sold to a group that, you know, Bob Eiger certainly has some credentials, you know, in the sports world, broadly and entertainment broadly and he's an impressive person and Josh Kushner's done big

Starting point is 00:19:52 business and yada yada yada yada and they both involved in the sports world yada yada yada but they have zero connection to this city and this organization whatsoever and this now feels impersonal for laker fans in a way that most laker fans in their lifetimes cannot wrap their heads around this and it leads to the poll that I put up on the YouTube channel asking locked on lakers Familia, how are you feeling about the sale of the team to Iger Kushner vote, but feel free to leave respectful and appropriate comments below, looking to take a temperature of the fan base. Optimistic at 10, this is about 450 or so votes.

Starting point is 00:20:33 Optimistic, 10%. Pessimistic, 35%. Not sure what to think, 48%. Same as under Mark Walter more or less. And it's, I think, predictable and understanding. that somewhere in between pessimistic and not sure what to think, that made up 83% of the vote. Like this is, this is something, there's a comment coming up that I want to read. And I would, I would consider 18 for the 10% optimistic, same as under Mark Walter, more

Starting point is 00:21:10 or less is a different version of optimistic for most people. So you're only talking about 18% of the fan base who. feel good. And look, I want to make it clear. I don't think this is automatically going to be a disaster, quite frankly. I don't even know enough to decide it's going to be a disaster. But I do not blame a single fan for A, being pessimistic and B, just feeling kind of pissed. Because this is not the thing that they were told was going to happen.

Starting point is 00:21:41 The thing that they thought was going to elevate the franchise that they have given. so much of their emotion towards, in a lot of cases, a lot of their money towards. I don't blame them for being upset about this. I mean, putting aside, however, you may feel about Iger and Kushner as businessmen and or as people, just the idea of where the organization is heading now compared to what we were sold, I don't blame them for being upset. I don't blame them for being skeptical or pessimistic. No.

Starting point is 00:22:14 And, you know, I think there's, you know, I mean, Bob Eiger, I guess they're connected to Los Angeles in a sense. You just sort of remember when Kevin and Garnett has a house in Malibu and was going to sign with the Lakers. Like both of them, like own property here. Bob Eiger obviously lived here when he was running Disney and all that kind of stuff. And maybe still, you know, never left. I have no idea. But it's not the same kind of connection as, you know, running the Dodgers for a decade. it. There is an aspect of this, though, that if it was, I will, where I think that the Lakers lucked out in the

Starting point is 00:22:52 sense that this, this is going, the way this is playing out as unfortunate as it is, is happening in a way that actually benefits the Lakers. And I'll explain next. You know, so, Andy, there were reports of, you know, this investigation and, you know, this is, It's not brand new news. You know, we knew a few weeks ago that, you know, the,

Starting point is 00:23:23 I guess a cell phone, I think it was, or a laptop from Mark Walter was seized by the feds and stuff. There you go. I often have them both near each other. So it would have been easy. And I think,

Starting point is 00:23:37 you know, it's like, oh, okay, like you expect there be some sort of fallout, maybe eventually, but sometimes these things take a long time, whatever it might be.

Starting point is 00:23:47 The Lakers are lucky. I think Lakers fans are lucky that if this was going to happen, it happened fast. Yes. There was no, you know, this could be the type of thing that dragged out in a, in a way that was very protracted in a way that didn't necessarily get Mark Walter to sell the Lakers, but could get him to stop spending money in the way the Lakers, that Lakers fans want to get. My interest in this stuff is really, I mean, I'm interested in the. Mark Walter's story, but for the purposes of our show and what we do here, what matters is what comes next.

Starting point is 00:24:29 And had this been the kind of thing that dragged out for a long time, or even worse, kept him from spending money and, you know, continuing to build, you know, build out the things and not, you know, whatever it might be. Then the Lakers are really stuck. Think of the Frank McCourt era down the stretch with the Dodgers before. that eventually got resolved. A lot of it became messy, including a willingness or lack thereof to spend. Like that situation got super, super messy down the stretch. Or like when Donald Sterling eventually got forced out as owner of the Clippers. Like if this was going to happen,

Starting point is 00:25:11 it is better that it happened early in the tenure before, I mean, we had both said that we were kind of surprised and even a little bit alarmed that some of the people on the front office hadn't those positions hadn't been filled. But I guess in retrospect, while it's still not ideal that they haven't been filled, at least now there's a better chance that they will be filled by they will be filled by people that the new ownership approves of. Well, yes, yes, eventually when new ownership gets to hire people. And I think this is, this is again, this is one of the reasons why I really want this to go as quickly as possible. Why whatever, you know, if Mark Walter needs to, if Walter needs to delay the sale for some

Starting point is 00:26:01 reason or, you know, be on a timeline where he needs an extra month because that changes the tax allocations from the sale or whatever might be and that slows it down. That's not good. If it takes longer, you know, to divest those shares and find a buyer, do all the contractual work that goes into no longer being a minority owner of the Miami Heat. And I've never done that before, so I can't speak to exactly that process. But I need that to go quick because you mentioned hiring. The Lakers reportedly have been trying to hire assistant GMs, higher than, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:37 by some reports have been turned down by some folks. This will not help that. No. This will not help that at all because one of the, the first things that happens when a new ownership group comes in is that executives get put under a microscope and often get let go. And so I'm not sure if the pool of applicants here who might normally jump at being, you know, like go work for the Lakers. You know, I'll be part of this front office that's going to look like the Dodgers look like and, you know, whatever. I'm not

Starting point is 00:27:17 sure you're going to get quite as many candidates who are going to be willing to jump at the opportunity to move to the to the Lakers until new ownership takes over. Yeah. Because there's only so much coordination, I think, that it can happen between current ownership and the new guys around hiring and around all that stuff. There's only so much that's going to happen here. And they're going to be relatively, there's just too much other stuff for these guys to be doing.

Starting point is 00:27:44 And so again, it's another reason why this needs to go as quickly as possible if you're a Lakers fan because a lot of things are going to be put on hold. Yeah, I wanted to also address just because it's, I mean, we'll inevitably do another round of Rob Polinka's job security, Junie's role, yada, yada, that's not going anywhere soon. But it's been making the rounds an old, I guess it's from 2021 appearance by Bob O'Haw. Iger on JJ Reddick's old man in three podcasts back when JJ Redick was a full-time podcaster. And I don't even- Such a sweet gig. Well, actually, I think in 2021, I actually think he was a part-time podcast. Yeah, he was a part-time podcaster, full-time NBA player.

Starting point is 00:28:33 But he had Bob Iger on as a guest. And JJ had gotten to know Bob Iger pretty well when he was a member of the Clippers, in part because Bob Eiger was a fan of the Clippers. He said during this podcast, quote, I'm a Clippers fan. Having moved from New York to Los Angeles back in 2000, being a big NBA fan, I needed a team to root for. And my youth, the Lakers were a big rival of the Knicks, the team I grew up rooting for. So I couldn't root for the Lakers very easily.

Starting point is 00:29:00 It just was not in my DNA. So I decided to adopt the Clippers, which is actually a good thing because their seats were a lot cheaper than the Lakers. And obviously, this making the rounds is, ironic and humorously awkward, but like this is nothing Laker fans should actually be bothered by. I can promise you at least half to three quarters of the league is made up of billionaire owners who at one time rooted for a different team than the one that they own. Like this is just very common and also transplants to L.A., particularly ones that have grown up in cities that had their own NBA team. but just in general, transplants often feel like rooting for the Lakers is too easy or bandwagoning.

Starting point is 00:29:49 Like I know non-billionaire people like this. So I can promise you. It's hard for me to say most of my friends are billionaire. So it's sure. I can for regular folk. Yeah. I can promise you that Bob Eiger, once he is putting his own money and resources and reputation into this,

Starting point is 00:30:11 He's going to be fully invested in the Lakers success. What I actually found... A few hundred million makes you a fan of anyone. What I actually found interesting about this, though, was in kind of under the radar. And I didn't really see anybody else picking up on this or talking about it. It's a reinforcement that Bob Eiger has a relationship with JJ Reddick, like that they actually have known each other for years and seemingly reasonably well. and while this does not guarantee JJ job security, it certainly doesn't hurt.

Starting point is 00:30:47 And as we're looking for any type of even possible clues about how things are going to be moving forward. And until then, I got to be honest, I had no idea that the two of them even knew each other, much less that they actually have had some type of relationship at all. Again, it does not mean JJ can relax. anybody in this organization other than maybe Luca can truly feel like, yeah, I'm secure. But it does not hurt that the guy taking over has known you for a while and presumably thinks well of you. Yeah, I mean, for sure.

Starting point is 00:31:25 I mean, you know, and Bob Eager has a good relationship with Adam Silver. He's, you know, he's, he is, you know, the relationship between the NBA and ESPN, you know, ESPN being under the Disney umbrella for a long time now. um is is strong i mean bob iger understands the league he knows the league he certainly knows the business of the league and all of that stuff so like he's not a a neophyte when it comes to that kind of stuff but like you know i it's a little thing like the i'm a clippers fan or whatever i think lakers fans ultimately don't care and like you say like they're you know once you invest that It's not like he's going to continue being a clipper fan or somehow try to undermine this.

Starting point is 00:32:10 It's not some 40 chess thing to try to, you know, undermine the Lakers and elevate the clippers. But it is one of those little things like you talked in the last segment about Lakers fans kind of feeling like this. This is just like it's a less special kind of deal. Like the Lakers have always been owned by people who didn't just love basketball. They love the Lakers. And, you know, again, I don't, I don't. I don't know if Mark Walter grew up a Lakers fan or not, like, but he was part of the team at this point. He was part of the city.

Starting point is 00:32:41 He was kind of, you know, grandfathered in, you know, if nothing else. And people just, people made those assumptions about it. And so you don't get to do that with Josh Kushner. He's a VC guy. And you know, you think what you will about venture capitalists and the direction that, you know, this takes the, the Lakers in that same direction. Just makes the Lakers feel like they're owned by just another group that would own any other team.

Starting point is 00:33:06 Exactly. And that from a Lakers fan perspective kind of sucks. It does. And sucks doesn't necessarily mean going to be bad. It could feel more interpersonal with championships attached. Like these can be very mutually exclusive things. I'm just saying if you have been a Laker fan for a certain period of time, this level of impersonal feels really weird.

Starting point is 00:33:33 It's jarring. It's definitely jarring. Dave McMendman had a piece up also at ESPN breaking down more of the sale. And one of the details that he noted was that Luca was not given a heads up. Donchich was not consulted about the sale. Sources told ESPN, but he plans to have a video conference call with Iger and Kushner next week from Sylvania as he prepares to host his teammates for a minicamp in his home country. I'm not surprised by this, nor, frankly, would I have expected.

Starting point is 00:34:01 Luke could have gotten a heads up. Like, Mark Walter clearly needed to make this happen right away. And whether or not he had Luca's blessing or enthusiasm would not have affected the outcome of this one iota. And as we all, as Luca of all people should know, given how he ended up surprisingly a Laker in the first place, you can't give any type of heads up at times with things like this because even one leak could have maybe caught. cause some type of scuttle there's no way that they were going to alert luka and run this by first all what if he says no right like it well what are you going to do not by the lakers right i mean it's going to happen there's this is well above lucca's pay correct um it's also lucan's fifth

Starting point is 00:34:51 majority ownership that's crazy yeah but like this notion that like it's a very NBA way of thinking Like, we're so used to in the NBA, you know, with the, with the stars and like the influence they have on teams and all this stuff. Like, oh, did you get, are you working in concert with your star player? Like, not on this. We're not. Like, you know, Mark Walter's not going to run the sale by him and the guys buying the team aren't going to run the purchase by them. Like if Luca has, if Luca's objections are that deep, the Lakers will have no trouble. finding him a different home.

Starting point is 00:35:30 So it's like that's, yeah. I mean, I don't worry about that stuff, but it'll be fine. The last thing I wanted to mention just because it's also gotten a lot of attention lately, Bob Eiger and Chris Paul have a very close relationship. They've been very good friends for a while. And there's an increasing expectation that Chris Paul could be brought into the front office. I think this would be a really good thing were to happen. Chris Paul is a natural leader.

Starting point is 00:35:57 He is somebody that has. has a lot of respect among his peers. And yes, there is that history of wearing on teammates. It's very well documented. I think it's accurate. I also expect that in a totally different, totally on court, off court role, that tendency will soften a lot. I don't think it would be an issue.

Starting point is 00:36:20 I think he'd be a real asset if they brought him in. It depends on what they want them to do. I mean, that's really the, do I object to Chris Paul being in there? No, I don't object to anybody who's smart and has basketball knowledge to impart or whatever. It just depends on what job you're asking to do. They fired Rob and hired Chris Paul, would I consider that or... I don't suspect if that would be the role. I don't suspect that's what they're thinking.

Starting point is 00:36:44 But like, you understand my point. Yes. That would be bad. But so... I'd be stunned if that was. Right. But that's what I'm getting out. Is it a problem to add Chris Paul somewhere in the organization?

Starting point is 00:36:56 No. I think they should do what our expectation was that the Lakers would do on that Dodgers model, which is collect smart people, put them in the front office and get them all. But like, it just depends on what. So the good news is they'll have plenty of time to figure this stuff out because among the other things that I mentioned, a long list of things that have to happen. I think there's still more investors that need to be brought into this group to round out the rest of the money. So there's just some stuff on the to-do list, not surprisingly, for a $12.5 billion deal that came together in three days.

Starting point is 00:37:37 Lockdown-Linkers on YouTube is we're going to hang out with over 39,000 subscribers to the channel. We've got a mini show coming up Friday afternoon on the schedule release. We didn't forget about it. There's just a lot of other stuff happening. So do check that out on Friday afternoon. We will see everyone then have a great weekend.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - How do Lakers Fans Feel About New Ownership? And Why the Sale Needs to Happen Quickly

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