Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Tim Harris to Leave Lakers at Season's End... Are Bigger Changes Still to Come?

Starting point is 00:00:00 President of business operations, Tim Harris, will reportedly leave the organization after this season. Lakers fans are wondering if this means bigger changes are coming under new owner Mark Walter. We'll tell you 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 making Lockdown Lakers. First listen to every day, Monday through Friday, no matter how. or where you get your podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:38 Spotify, maybe you're an Apple guy. Maybe you're one of the 37,000 plus subscribers to Lockdown Lakers on YouTube no matter how you get the show, Andy. You are part of making the Lockdown Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast network in any universe that we've ever heard of, or at least. Brian Komeneski with Andy Komeneski. We covered the team for nearly 20 years with ESPN,

Starting point is 00:00:59 with the LA Times, with the athletic. And in that time, Andy, a lot of changes. Now we've seen a guy who's been there, the entire time that you and I have been there, Tim Harris, a 35-year veteran of the forum and working with the Lakers. On the business side, he reportedly, Dan Wakey reporting on Tuesday morning that he would be leaving the organization at the end of the year. And you and I, I think it's should be said, I don't know why. Talk to Tim about it. I don't know if this is related to changes with Mark Walter coming in as the new owner. I don't know if.

Starting point is 00:01:36 it's a guy who's just been in this job for 35 years and is ready to move on. A combination of many things. Could be. Tim has always been great to us. And so we certainly wish him the best. Yeah. And but I think with this, this is one of those things where it gets people thinking and talking because they are looking for.

Starting point is 00:02:00 And if you're a fan, really on the basketball side, not the business side. But if you're a fan, you're looking for it. for signs that more changes are coming under new owner, Mark Walter. Yeah, one last thing I wanted to say about Tim just because it's considered one of his biggest accomplishments, the TV deal that they have with Spectrum Sportsnet, which is, A, it's produced some awesome product. The game broadcast itself, the coverage and analysis. Occasionally, Brian and I pop up on those programs as well.

Starting point is 00:02:31 it's been a really, really good, I think, partnership between the Lakers and the network to say nothing of. It's been lucrative as bleep. I thought that's what you meant. It's been a very profitable, very good deal for. Right. I was getting to that. And Tim Harris is considered by many to be the primary architect of that and, you know, driving force behind it. So I just wanted to make sure to mention that.

Starting point is 00:02:59 as far as the what is it all mean with Tim Harris leaving, you know, this coming on the heels of Joey and Jesse Bus being fired. And, you know, they had direct roles in the basketball piece of the Lakers. Two guys that in their minds at the very least were setting up to eventually be running the big club pre-sail. Right. Pre-sale, exactly. Tim Harris, I think his exit represents. another piece of that history disappearing, for lack of a better way of putting it, and a new book being written for the Lakers.

Starting point is 00:03:39 And also it represents a real member. This is the first real member of Jeannie Bus's inner circle exiting the organization. That circle has been seen as Tim Harris, Rob Polinka, Kurt Ramis, Linda Ramis. Like those are really the innermost members of that circle. It's always been an unusually small front office. In both Brian in my opinions, it's been way too small in ways that has damaged the organization or prevented it from being as good as it can be. And that's not even necessarily a reflection of each individual person.

Starting point is 00:04:19 But it's been too many people who've been only inside that building. I mean, I guess they would argue Rob, but I mean, Rob comes with. No, Rob's time. Yeah, exactly. He has never done this job anywhere else, but with the Lakers. And Magic at one point was part of that inner circle as well. His experience was all inside the Lakers.

Starting point is 00:04:42 Like, Gene, this, if nothing else to me, signals the true beginning of bringing in people who don't check Jeannie's personal relationship as a big box at the very, maybe not primary. Part of a transit. Here's the thing. We'll take a break here in a second. We'll talk about this afterwards. Like I is clearly, I think, the beginning of a transition. Again, I have no idea why Tim left.

Starting point is 00:05:08 I haven't talked to him or why Tim is going to leave. He has been there for 35 years. Yeah. You know, was part of one of these guys, you know, was one of the reportedly people who got a nice payout with the with the sale and all they say. I, you know, there are a lot of reasons that are. The ramby as well, and that's important to note too. Right. None of this is necessarily like, you know,

Starting point is 00:05:33 Mark Walter cleaning house. And I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of wishcasting, I think, from Lakers fans especially, and a lot of kind of tea leaf reading on the part of Lakers' media. People cover it.

Starting point is 00:05:53 People like us, whether they're, you know, day-to-day reporters or people, you know, podcasters, like us. So let's take a break. And I, because what you were saying, I think, is potentially true, but I'm not sure it's true. And we'll still talk about it next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Fandul. The Winter Olympics are officially here. And you are likely locking in for events that you can only see on the biggest stage every four years. And that's why following the winter games on Fandul. It just makes sense. From metal counts to individual events to finding your angle

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Starting point is 00:08:58 sponsored job credit to help get your job, the premium status. It deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply hiring. Do it the right way with Indeed. So two things here. The first one is when when Lakers fans expressed frustration with Jeannie, for example, they're really expressing frustration with her oversight over basketball operations. I don't think anybody has some real problems with how Jeannie runs the business. And, you know, I don't think they care. Exactly. Other than how the operation of the business allows them to spend money on basketball.

Starting point is 00:09:36 Yeah, but that was really independent of how good of a job she was doing and more just related to can you find a few billion dollars of liquidity under a couch cushion, somewhere, which they couldn't. So, you know, when people talk about big changes coming, and Tim Harris leaving the organization is a big change to the organization. It's not from an area, though, where people would look at and be like, thank God changes coming to the Lakers. That's really the basketball side. The business side, Tim Harris, Jeannie, who is ostensibly going to stay and continue. And over time, if she, let me finish, but if she stays in the org, it is much more likely that she stays in the function of a business side person than somebody who's ultimately making

Starting point is 00:10:26 the decisions about the basketball sides. Because that's what Mark Walter is for, is to decide, am I going to spend my money on X, Y, and Z? Are we going to do my money for these, you know, these products? So I think over time, if Jeannie does stay these five years that they agreed on when they, It's going to be over time, mostly towards the business side of things, and we'll see less of her involvement on the basketball side, which, by the way, I think is just fine with Jeannie. When people are talking about changes, they're talking about the basketball side. And I don't know if this is a foreshadowing of big changes coming to.

Starting point is 00:11:15 that side of the office, I know Lakers fans want it to be. And I know there's already reporting that like this summer is going to bring a lot of, the Lakers have to build out their scouting department again. They ought to build their basketball ops department much larger than it has been. Their analytics department. All these other things. Like this is all infrastructure that needs to grow quickly.

Starting point is 00:11:42 Yeah, but I would say this. first of all, it has always been my impression that while Tim Harris, I've always gotten the impression that he was not without voice in basketball decision. Sure. I agree with that. And certainly somebody that Jeannie had as a sounding board and somebody that she considered close counsel for all things, which I imagine include basketball. And the fact that an inner, like a true inner circle member is going to be leaving, That in and of itself to me constitutes big change because if nothing else, one quarter of the circles out like 25% of your circle is leaving.

Starting point is 00:12:25 I mean, that by definition is a big deal. I'm not minimizing. What I'm saying is I do think this actually affects the basketball. And I do think it actually affects the things that the fans care about because when the circle is that small in terms of the people who. who have actual voice in the things that go on in the organization that the fans damn well sure do care about, I don't think it can be overstated how important this is and what it may signal moving forward because the Lakers have been a way things have always been organization

Starting point is 00:13:01 for a long time and frankly way too long. Oh, for sure. Tim Harris's departure, and I want to make it clear, I don't mean that. this as a slight against Tim, it represents a freshness that this organization has needed. It represents momentum in a direction that the organization is needed to go. And I think we'll be going independent of Tim himself. Well, I mean, two things are over there. I will say we're in place I agree with you is that obviously it's, you know, it's one more

Starting point is 00:13:35 person or one less person who I think is part of the infrastructure that potentially you know, makes, that adds security to Rob. I don't know because I don't know what that relationship looks like. I'm not talking about the insulation or security for Rob, that falls on Mark Walter. Right. But that's what's going to. That's kind of what I'm getting to. Like those types of things, you know, to whatever extent, you know, people like the Ramble,

Starting point is 00:14:10 and Tim Harris were involved in what would be considered basketball decisions, as opposed sort of the business of basketball. You know, obviously that should start to shift to whoever they bring into this front office. But we'll see over time that the building of the infrastructure is really just going to be a thing that takes place at some speed. I think Lakers fans hope it happens really, really fast, and it might. It also might take a little bit longer.

Starting point is 00:14:48 I think Lakers fans would love to see a new infrastructure in place in time for some of the big decisions that are going to have to come in what is a crucial offseason for them. And I don't think, I don't think all of that will be in place. It depends on how you're defining new infrastructure. If you're talking about an infrastructure that no longer includes Rob Belinka. No, but I'll be right. I'll tell you what I'm talking about.

Starting point is 00:15:13 Something when people think of the Dodgers, where especially relatively early in that process, they brought in tons and tons of people, not just Andrew Friedman, but people around Andrew Friedman. They had like 17 former GMs just where you were like you were, if you were a former GM who somebody thought was smart and currently was out of a job. Like Dodgers just hoovered you up to be a consultant basically for them for a season or two. It took, it was, didn't happen right away. Ned Coletti stayed on as the GM, I believe for two years before.

Starting point is 00:15:51 He was kind of quietly retired from from the team. I have no doubt that the in, in four years, things are going to look vastly different in the, in the front office. both in terms of the remnants of this era and also just how big all of it is and what the infrastructure looks like. I just don't know how quick it's going to come. And we'll see. I think they're going to start hiring out people.

Starting point is 00:16:22 I think they're going to start building. I just, Lakers fans want it, want a process that looks more, I think, like the sort of finished version of the Dodgers rather than the sort of deliberate process that Walter and his group, the Guggenheim group, went through when they bought the team as they started to put it together. The one counter, I would say quickly to what you were talking about before. Mark Walter at that point was newer at only. a team than he is now, like, you know, a decade and a half has passed since he purchased the

Starting point is 00:17:04 Dodgers. So some of the cautiousness may not still exist simply because he's more accustomed to how this stuff works just through true experience. And he had, to the best of my knowledge, spent far less time around the Dodgers than he had been as a minority owner of the Lakers for several years before eventually doing this. So I am guessing, He is much more familiar with what works in his mind and what doesn't work in his mind with the Lakers than he was with the Dodgers. And also, too, at the very least, there needs to be and should be more people around Rob this offseason, whether he keeps the role or not simply because there's no excuse for it not being. It's too big of a job for it just to be Rob Polinka,

Starting point is 00:17:58 working unilaterally. And that would be Mark Walter, frankly, being derelict in his duty. I, it's just a question of how fast. I, like I said, I don't know if he, there are different things that can be done with different speeds. I don't know if Walter would agree with you that it's a dereliction of duty to not do it by this summer. To bring in nobody else but Rob Belinka? That to bring in, you know, people that would have the capacity to change his, mind over you know whether it's to overrule Rob Polinka to whatever it is to create an architecture to which Rob loses some degree of autonomy and control over the basketball operations I don't know if that's going to happen by the summer and I don't

Starting point is 00:18:46 think Walter would necessarily agree with you that from a prospect standpoint you don't have that that should well if he doesn't agree with you then those things aren't going to happen and he wouldn't my point is he I don't think he would agree that it's a dereliction of duty. Okay. This is a longer term project than just a longer term project, but the first step is really damn big. So you may not have the luxury of treating everything with the time that you would ideally

Starting point is 00:19:12 because they are faced right now with a type of decision in front of them with building around Luca that they were not faced with at the time when Mark Walter brought the Dodgers. And that's a major difference in and of itself. I mean, I don't remember exactly where. I mean, team was, you know, where the team was status-wise. It was about two and a half years before they hired Andrew Friedman, by the way. But I just looked it up. Like, they will move, and I think they will move reasonably quickly.

Starting point is 00:19:41 I don't think a lot of the people that they would want to hire will be available until after the season's over anyway. Scouts are a different story. It's just going to be a push, a process that I don't think. is ever going to go as fast as hope it will. Again, it depends on the- Let me rephrase. It might go that fast.

Starting point is 00:20:06 I just don't know if it will. And I think it could end up being a little bit more deliberate than that, especially given how fast this timeline is. That's fine. And also, too, a lot of this timeline and what people are talking about speed is when the hell is he firing Rob Belenka? And that's not what I'm talking about.

Starting point is 00:20:25 I'm talking about the pieces that you put around, on Rob, even if you want to give him another extension on. I just think Rob will likely hire a lot of those people, at least initially. We'll see. Because if he doesn't, then there's really no point that you might as well replace Rob, which, by the way, is, I think people would be okay with. Anyway, it's an intriguing beginning to what looks like potential restructuring of how things are done across the organization, whether or slow or fast,

Starting point is 00:20:58 We'll see how it goes. Lockton Lakers on YouTube is where you can hang out with over 37,000 subscribers to the channel. We'll see everyone next time.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Tim Harris to Leave Lakers at Season's End... Are Bigger Changes Still to Come?

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