The Mismatch - Inside the Lakers’ New Era With Dan Woike

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

Verno and Jacoby are joined by The Athletic’s Dan Woike to help break down the entire Lakers situation. They discuss Mark Walter's shocking decision to sell the Lakers to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, the not-so-shocking Buss family drama since the Lakers were flipped by Walter, how the new ownership could affect Luka Doncic, and more. They also discuss how the Lakers' offseason acquisitions fit next to Luka, expectations for LeBron James on the Sixers, and Dan’s thoughts on the Clippers-Aspiration investigation. (00:00) Welcome to The Mismatch! (2:16) Initial reaction to the Lakers' sale to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner (10:10) On Mark Walter and the changes he started implementing on the Lakers (17:41) How does new ownership affect Luka Doncic? (21:10) LeBron James leaving the Lakers to sign with the Sixers (28:48) Explaining how a team governor role works (38:17) Pros and cons from the Lakers' offseason (48:34) Clippers-Aspiration investigation Leave us a message on our Mismatch Voicemail line! [phone] Hosts: Chris Vernon and David Jacoby Guest: Dan Wokie Producers: Jessie Lopez, Stefan Anderson, and Jeff Shearin Social: Keith Fujimoto Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced Ellie Me products for always $375.

And get Life Brand Pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more. Welcome to the mismatch. I'm Chris Vernon. And join me today's every week from the wringer.com is Dave Jacoby. Jacoby. Something happened on the group chat this week that has never happened before. We've been doing this show together for, I don't know, 17 years, two years, one year.

year, I don't know. But this is our first guest. It is our first guest. Wait, really? Ever, ever. Dan Wojke, you are the first guest. Ooh. What do you guys pack?

We're a thruple. We're a thruple now. That's why we don't have guests. I'm such a narcissist. People are like, do you just want to talk to some people for 40 minutes? I'm like, yeah, I'll do it for free. Dan Wojke from the athletic joining us. You've been covering LA sports for the better part of 20 years.

Jesus. August is supposed to be a downtime, Dan. This has not been a downtime. No. It's been exhilarating, but also infuriating at the same time. Because, like, this was supposed to be quiet. It was supposed to be vacation last week before kids go back to school. Like, I make a mistake as a parent.

And I'm on, like, year four of doing this now, where we book. the summer camp schedule, like in like April, when I am missing them very badly because I've been traveling all in the season. And I tell myself, like, oh, well, like, we don't need to go that week. Like, I miss them. I love them. I need to spend time with them. Like, I've got it.

Like, I've got it this week. I can do this week. And I can do that week. And invariably, some crazy shit happens every summer on a week in which my kids have no camp. And so they've been home all week. I covered the part of the sale. The sale I did from home, they were here. It was a nightmare.

And then the bus family element of this, I wrote my story from inside a indoor playground. All right. Let's get to the first part, the sale. Yeah. Were you stunned when that story came down that Mark Walter is selling the Lakers? So I had gotten a couple of like eyeball emoji text. in the week prior from some people.

And I actually was on vacation. I was in Chicago visiting family and was like following the Walter story, but like not digging it. Right. Like it was kind of like, okay, like this feels like it's going to be a thing over the next, you know,

two to three months because like these types of things tend to move slowly. And it's like, we should honor this. We like, right? Like we're going to have time. We're going to dig in it in modern. Um, so in that sense,

when it happens, I was like, oh my God. Like this is, fast. This happened really fast. It was easy to understand why and all of that stuff pretty quickly. But yeah, no, I was surprised. Like, I would love to sit here and tell you like, oh, yeah, you know, I had the story

too. I was surprised outside of the eyeball emoji bart. I was not surprised about the second part of this, which is, you know, the bus family and the bus family trust trying to sell the shares and Jeannie not wanting to sell. Like, I'm not surprised by that at all. When it comes down, right? and the guy sells the team. I know that in one of your articles,

you wrote that people close to Walter say, it's very easy. He bought it for $10 billion. He got offered $12.5 billion. He got called on Friday. They had the thing sealed up by the weekend. Like, there is no big conspiracy here, folks. He bought something for $12 billion or $10 billion.

And then he got, he sold it for $12.5. That's what it is. Then there's obviously all of this extra stuff going around and people going, okay, yeah, I got that he made the money, but you don't buy a team to sell it a year later. You also put in there, you also put in your article, he didn't have any interest in selling the team. I feel like I'm on trial right now. So I think the way this sort of happened, right, is like obviously, right, like he needed the money. You know, like he did need the money.

I think that's become pretty clear. The initial, like, sort of spiel from the people around him was like, this is just a great business transaction by a great businessman. Right? That's how I would want people to talk about me if I paid them, I think. Right? Like, you know, that's how I would want to be remembered too. And I think, you know, as like things kind of move quickly throughout that day, right?

I mean, it just, like, it became clear that, you know, they needed, this needed to happen quickly. You're right. The thing you said, Chris, that I think is smart and is that NBA franchises aren't like, they're not investments or they typically haven't been viewed as investments in that way, right? Like, you know, sometimes like a super rich person will buy like a piece of art or, you know, forever, right? Like we were talking a little bit about baseball cards, like the Honest Wagner baseball card. Right.

You don't buy the Honest Wagner baseball card to, like, hold. it in your hand and look at it and play with it and stuff like that. You buy it, put it in a safe and then to sell it in nine months again for a profit or whatever the time is down the line. Pro Sports franchises for like the ultra rich has always been more about like, hey, this is like a 30 person club. Try to get in when you can because no one, like people don't like to get out. Right.

And I think what's unique about this situation is just the speed, right, in which all of this has happened and all of this will happen. You know, I'm under the impression this transition is supposed to be pretty quickly. It's supposed to happen pretty quickly from, you know, the Walter group to the Iger Kushner group. That's going to be fast. The sale itself was fast. Like, I mean, I feel very confidently saying that like, they called on Friday, you know,

and said like, you need the money. Like, you want to sell? We're interested. Like, that was like, you know, that's what Josh Kushner did. You know, I think Iger spoke to him on Sunday, I think he said. Like anything that happens on a whim, like a $12.5 billion deal that just kind of happens over the course of a weekend. You know, like, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy. But if they've had a year.

Yeah, yeah. What do you got? What do you got? What do you got? Let's do it. Okay. I used to be a colleague, I'll call it, with Mr. Iger. And I'm familiar with the Kushner history and their father.

do they have enough money to put together $12.5 billion or are there some sovereign funds involved as well? I'm in the stage of my reporting where like I haven't dug like deep into their like financial backing yet because I'm still like unspooling like what's happening in the other end of it. I'll just say this. They were very involved in the bidding for Las Vegas. like very involved, right? And that was a process that was going to be very expensive.

So they have their group. Yeah, they have a group. They have a group. They have financial backing and stuff like that. Now, you know, what I think is interesting financially too, right, is like, this is going to be boring. So like, stop me when? So the reason the bus family, the trust, right, is able to sell without negotiation

is because of a clause that they had in the initial. sale agreement, which is called like tag along rights or tag in rights or whatever, which basically says that, hey, if Mark Walter sells, you can come on in, right? Like, you have to. You have to take into the deal. They decided to tag in. And, you know, if you're the buyer, you know, let's say you had a $9 billion budget. It's not $9 billion anymore.

Now you're buying, you know, what, 91% of the team instead of the, you know, I'm going to do terrible math, what, 72 or whatever it was, or 73% that maybe you thought you were getting originally. So, but I think, look, again, I think in these types of deals, right, like, I mean, this sounds insane. But like, what's a billion dollars? Like, people like, like, you know what I mean? There are people that want to invest. There are people that want to get into this. You know, and I think, like, these companies and these people, like, like, the ultra, ultra rich, like, have access to stuff that, like, quite frankly, like, none of us do.

How many people off the record say to you, he sold this team because he's screwed because he's got to get money because the SEC and the feds are after him. I mean, a lot. Everybody. I mean, yeah, yeah. That's what everybody thinks. He did not decide to get out of the Lakers business. Yeah, no.

I mean, I think it was like, I think, right, like it was, I'm in too many businesses. I have to trim here. I mean, like, you know, it's not just the Lakers, right? like, I mean, he's out of Chelsea, you know, or exploring ways to get out of Chelsea. You know, I mean, he has other properties. But you reported he ain't getting out of the Dodgers or the Sparks, huh? So I reported that the original transaction had nothing to do with the Sparks.

He may get out of the Sparks still. You know, the sense is like, again, the position has been like, you know, we don't have to get out of the Dodger business. We are in the Dodger business. Like, we want to stay in the Dodger business. But, you know, it's hard to know how much the, these walls are closing in right now. It's just hard to know.

It feels like they are, right? But it also, like, I think that the messaging I've gotten when I've talked to people around that group is that, you know, they're confident that with these transactions, they'll be able to satisfy the needs that they need to satisfy with investigators and loan operators and different things like that and they'll be able to kind of go along on their merry way. Did people like him as an owner?

I mean, he's only there for a year, but like, what was the first impression? And did he, like, turn the whole thing over? I mean, inevitably, new ownership comes in. They hire and fire people and the way you do things becomes different than the way it's always been because it had always been family owned for so many years. So everybody kind of knew the way the buses did business and the way they did things. And so they had a new guy. Chris, they made like eight TV shows about it too.

So you can always find ways to see how the buses do business. That's right. But they brought it a new guy and he was only there for a year. So like we don't have, you know, he didn't make some. kind of massive splash like the guy in Portland is or Ishbia who's got his own, you know, loaded crap. So I'm going to push back on that. I think there were things that were happening around the Lakers that were changing the Lakers in ways that would have made them unrecognizable, right?

What? And they're not. So one, like as far as like, do people like Mark Walter or not, people didn't know Mark Walter. He went to the Backstree Boys concert with Luca for his birthday. like he was part of that group. You know what I mean? But like Mark, like Mark isn't like a day-to-day.

Like, I've got an office in the building. I'm there. I was trying to run down if he'd ever been inside the practice facility. Was he at games? You would come to games every once in a while. Like I would say not,

not every game. Like, again, not like Jeannie. So here are the ways that they were doing this. One of the things they did is they changed their team president. Tim Harris, who'd been their team business president for a very long time, steps down. Steps down.

And very quickly they hire Lon Rosen. You speak Magic Johnson's agent. He's in a lot of these TV shows as a pundit or a speaker. Lon had been working for the Dodgers and chief marketing officer or something like that. He comes in and immediately like the mandate seems to be revenue. We need to create more revenue. Okay. One of the weird things about the Lakers is that like maybe to the frustrations of others,

like revenue was never like the like the full on like north star. Right? Like I mean a lot of it was like being special and being the Lakers. So like, okay, this is little stuff, dumb stuff, but things that happen. They added a row of seats around the courts, around the court. Right. A lot. Most of the areas have one or two, maybe even three rows of court side seating.

Laker court side seating. Again, exclusive. One row. Not anymore. you know, that was money that was left on the table. They thought we could do that. You know, the media seats at games have always been pretty good there, lower level in the corner, sold them.

They kicked half the media upstairs during the playoffs. They sold those seats, you know, sold. They were, I mean, we don't know where we're sitting, or I haven't seen where we're sitting there. We're not sitting in the same spot. They sold our seats too, right? so we're moving. It's happening. I had heard like dumb little rumors like,

oh, like they might start charging for scouts to eat. It was a place where people ate for free. It's like not going to be a place where people eat for free anymore. None of this is to say that like it's, oh my God, look at their the Dodgers now. But it was like they were like they were trying to make money. It was like in a way that in the past, I mean, the Laker girls have it. Yeah, you did. Yeah, you had some.

The Laker Girls have a jersey patch sponsor. I liked it. What is it? What, who is it? It's some company. Like, it's like some,

just look at your screen tape. Look at your screen tape. I will tell you what it is. Lakers. Look at your treat saver. Laker girls. I had to look up their jersey sponsor two years ago. It was dumplings.

Frozen dumplings they had two years. Oh, Bidigo. Yeah. Yeah. That's a pretty good. We would get once a year. We would get Bibigo night.

And they're good. Like, We get them at Costco. They're nice. Laker Girls jersey sponsor. Oh, I heard they sold the Laker Girls since, too. Oh, they saw. Diso.

Diso. Oh, Dyso. The first ever presenting sponsor of the Laker Girls. Now. So this is very true of a lot of family-owned businesses, right? Is this progress? It's a passion. But then somebody's going to buy a business owner wants to run it like an actual business.

I mean, that doesn't, I don't think he's, you know, it doesn't necessarily make him a bad. guy. Not at all. That's pretty much, however, you guys had it really good with the buses just kind of, this is kind of the way we've always done things. I mean, that had its downsides too. Yeah.

Like, I mean, I think, I think in this case, right? So that was like the business side of it, right? I would say that it was also, you know, I mean, part of that meant layoffs. And the layoffs were rough. Like they were bad. There were two rounds of layoffs. Talk about revenue and revenue driving.

a thing that they did was they moved their G-League team out of their practice facility and El Segundo, which for people who don't know, was like by the ocean, like, you know, right by the airport. Yeah, great spot to be. They moved it to Palm Springs in Coachella Valley. Also pretty, don't get me wrong, but like two and a half hours away, three hours away, you know, by car. And it could be much more than that depending when you go.

The pitch was, oh, well, we needed the space and the press. active facility. You know, we wanted our players to play in front a bigger crowds, different things like that. It, I mean, it's the right. It's bullshit. Like, that's mostly bullshit.

You're right. I think, like, because if you care about winning basketball games, if you cared about winning basketball games, having your G league team in your building helps you win basketball games. It gets better G league players to sign with your team. Right. So, like, like last year, there was probably, I mean, one game, I would say, during the season that they'd

not win if Drew Timmy does not play for the Lakers, right? Drew Timmy signed on a two-way contract. Drew Timmy gets that two-way contract because he's playing with, he's playing with the South Bay Lakers or whatever like that. LeBron James has sciatica. He needs to practice with the G-League team, right? See, Governor Palm Springs to do that?

No. Well, maybe not to play golf. He'd be at PJ West like the entire time. But otherwise, like, no. Like, he's not. That's not a thing. But if it's in El Segundo, if it's in the practice facility, it's where all the trainers and everything is.

Yeah, let's roll the ball out there. So he practices with the G-League team. Drew Timmy kills. He, like, cooks, right? Like, real pro, does the right things, knows where to be, stuff like that. Lakers, two-way up. He helps them win regular season games.

I asked Drew Timmy, after all of this stuff is over. I was like, if you were in Palm Springs, would you have signed, would you have picked a sign with the Lakers as like a G-League player? And he said, absolutely. So, Dan, Um, you know, I've followed you and been a fan of yours, your career. You're lying.

You don't even know how to say my name, Dave. I had to ask multiple times. I've never been able to say it confidently, which is why I called you Dan. But I want to say this. Is your dad Brooks, Jacoby? Is that your dad? Uh, the third baseman for the Cleveland Indians. When I was a child, I believe, yeah.

Joe Jacoby is my uncle. Uh, one of the hogs. But, um, um, um, sorry. I want to. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research.

Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. ask you this, I don't really care about the financial stuff and like the billionaires and like the Department of Justice. I care about basketball. If I'm Luca Donchich and I'm looking at this sort of like revamped roster, which is, you know, you can feel how you feel about their offseason. I think it was fine. But like, sure. How does this affect you if you are Luca Donchich who frankly fell in the Lakers laps and now you're on another ownership?

Like it does this jeopardize the relationship between. the best player on the team and the team itself? Truthfully, I think, I mean, the way it affects him today, very little. The way it can affect him over the next 16 months, tremendous. Ownership is one of the great advantages in sports, particularly in salary capital. You have good ownership. You can build a good infrastructure. It allows you to do things.

And then you can invest in biomedics. You can invest in scouting. And that was, I was going to say. say, Chobobey, like, part of this was like the Lakers were moving in a more analytics direction, right? Now, does that mean, like, cutting edge or does that mean Darrymore? You know what I mean? I'm like, we're doing the same thing. I actually have their program.

It's called Get All White Guys. It's not analytics, man. All right. Okay. Okay. So. Welcome to the mismatch, Dan. So.

Oh, yeah. They're really into... And they like the numbers. Are they like the numbers? Yes. They like the numbers. They like the numbers. Maybe it's a market inefficiency, guys.

Maybe they're money-balling this. They think so. The, no, I think like, and by the way, it's just going to be a long year of that. I'm already ready for it. It's just going to be a long year of that. I think, you know, where it affects him, right, is that, like, you know, if you make changes,

this new group comes in, decides they want to do things a different way. The previous group was like, say what you will about the Lakers, always very good at star catering, like always very good at it. Always. And maybe this is a group that doesn't want to do that.

We'll see. I mean, I would think, I would think, but like you don't know until you see it. You know, you don't know what they're going to invest and you don't know where that stuff is. Do I ultimately end of the day think, ownership in this way has like a direct one-to-one relationship with players.

I don't. And you like, I remember during the Donald Sterling stuff, I was covering the Clippers, Chris. And I remember talking to Blake Griffin and Golden State, like after the tape came out. And we were talking about,

you know, I was pretty early in my career still and I was maybe like, man, like does it just like disappoint you? Like, this is your boss. This is your owner. He's like,

you think I think I think about Donald Sterling? Like when I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, cover. David Leitz. Right. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, it's like, that's just not, I just don't think it's like that big of a thing. It's nice when they're nice. You know what I mean? Like,

I think it mattered to players that Jeannie treated their family well. She did. I think it matters to people that, like, you know, like that, like they, again,

they treated people in that circle like family. I think that was really good for the organization. It made a good place to play basketball. If this new group doesn't, but the talent is awesome, I think it'll be. all right. Do you think it would have affected, do you think Mark Walter

buying the team if that never happened, do you think LeBron James is still a Laker? No. No. I think that ran its course. I think I mean LeBron's

like run with the Lakers is going to be like fascinating to see like fast forward 10 years. Like what do we think about LeBron as a Laker? How much do we think about LeBron as a Laker? The reality is like when it comes to like consecutive time spent in a place, that'll be the place he was planted longest. You know, eight years with the Lakers was longer than he played anywhere else in a consecutive stretch. And we will think of that third.

Yeah. And it's just like it was a significant amount of time, right? And I think like why has he not stayed other places longer? I think he's kind of itchy in general about this stuff. Like he likes change. He likes like he needs to be like stimulated and poked and like moving. move it on and move it on. And that's why, like, you know,

the rosters turn over and different things like that. I just think that's who he is and how he is. I think that was part of it. You know, I think that from like the Lakers perspective, like, it's really hard to like be Lucas team if LeBron James is on it, I think is really hard. And if you're like committed to a future, it's hard to move in that direction.

If you don't know when you're going to be able to because LeBron is still too good. you know what I mean? It's like it would be one thing. You can point at the Lakers and say like, man, they should have gotten in on this LeBron stuff like at the minimum. I can tell you they never called afterwards. Like it's not like they tried to like rebuild the bridge. It's not, that wasn't a thing.

You know, like they knew it was over. Everybody knew it was over. Yeah. So it was done. It was done. I think that, you know, had LeBron been like, you know, I've got 82 more games in. and then I'm done forever. I will give you these,

I'll give you these 82 games. Maybe. But the problem is, he doesn't know if it's only 82 games. It might be 200 games. Like, he's still that good. He's still that interested, right? He's still that excited about basketball.

Can I give you guys my LeBron theory was why he's on the Sixers? Oh. Why he picked the Sixers and not anywhere else? No, you can't. Actually, no, you can't. No. Have you guys seen the movie Free Solo ever?

about the mountain climber, the guy who like climbed the building on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah. Who like feels no joy unless he like has the risk of death. Like that line like it just doesn't like he's not interested enough. I think after 23 years in the NBA, going back to home for like a nice homecoming,

too safe. Going to Miami, not interesting enough. Like go to go to the lion's death. Like go play with all these crazy personalities. Like go do something where the highs will be the absolute highest. The lows will be the absolute highest. absolute lowest and I will feel alive.

Oh, damn. I'm so glad you're here because I don't respect Ferno's basketball opinions. This Sixers team, I believe in my entire life and career has the lowest floor and the highest ceiling of any preseason roster I've ever seen

in my entire life. They could win 30 games or 80 games and I have no idea where we're going to end up. So I just want to know your opinion, like where do you think this team perform Zet? Like, are they, like, the eighth seat or the one seat at the Eastern Conference?

Because I could easily make a case for both. I don't think they're the ones. And I mean, this is going to, they're like, they're like, that's two. Right. I think, like, I don't worry about, like, LeBron, like, taking, like, a quote, unquote, like, complimentary on court role. Like, he chose this, right? He chose this for himself, you know, he wasn't like he did it.

And then they did the Jalen Brown trade. And then they, you know, added Tyrese. He knows what he's walking into. and he knows, I believe, especially after watching him over the last 18 months around Luca, like eventually, like, he can bend his game in just about every direction still, right? Which is crazy. And I also think putting him in a position where he has to win you five possessions in crunch time instead of having to win you five minutes will be much better for him over the course of a season too, right?

And he'll be able to manage the season, do all that other stuff. I mean, like, it's the questions, though, the problem is, like, you add LeBron, awesome. You had Jalen Brown. Awesome. The questions are like, like, is Joel and B. going to be healthy?

Like, it just still feels like if he, and if he's not, are you good enough or can you be good? Yeah. And the other thing is everybody always says, oh, great players always figure it out,

but there's still one ball. Somebody's got to backseat it. You know what I mean? Somebody's got to move the ball. Like, these teams are all stars and role players, right? Everybody knows who is getting the ball for the,

you know, there's a pecking order. I believe in this. These teams. Yeah, I believe in this. All right. Who's the fourth guy? And guys don't generally like to be the fourth guy.

And Jacoby, like the argument for them being eighth, right, is that guys don't like going backwards either generally, right? Particularly when you're at a certain stage in your career. You know, Tyrese just had the best offensive season of his life in the NBA. So he's going to be asked to do less. Like, and that's going to be okay. As a Nick fan, he is terrifying. Terrifying.

You know, Jalen Brown, like, just got to. to do it all. Like, and now he's going to have to do less. Is he excited about that? He's going to take two shots again. Yeah, BJ, like, I remember thinking about, like, talking to, I was talking to a veteran NBA person. This is an old as hell dude.

And we were, no, but close. Same generation. The, um, we were talking about if LeBron was going to Cleveland. Like, who would, like, how would it work? Who would suffer the most? And we decided it was like, like, Evan Bowl. Like, this would. have been like hell for Evan Mowgli.

Because Evan Mowgli's job on that team that would be to go play defense like a banchie all the time and like not worry about offense. Which is like any time that conversation has ever happened with a 25 year old player in the NBA, it's not gone well. It never goes well.

When Boston added Kyrie Irving, I was still doing like some national stuff with the other times. I remember I went there once and like thought the vibe was like a little off. And I remember looking at the sets and it was like Marcus Smart was shooting less. Jaylen Brown was shooting less. Jason Tatum was shooting less.

And all these guys were ascended in their career, right? They're 22, 23 years old and different things like that. And they're now all being asked to sacrifice at a time when they should be taking on more responsibility. You know what I mean? And being, like, it's just, it's unnatural in the NBA. So in that sense, like, that's scary if you're the six years. That's scary. But I think, like, BJ Edgecom is in year two.

He's not in year five. Right. Like, that's helpful in this. I think Tyrese Maxie has known LeBron through Clutch because of the day he entered the environment. Like, that's helpful, right? I think that they all know where Jalen Brown, like, he's been pretty vocal about his opinions about last season. That allows for people to kind of work with that, too. Fascinating team-building experiment, though. They're like the most interesting team in the world.

Well, we'll see what happens with LeBron. Let's rally back to his old team Because I This we've gone entirely too long Before we get into the succession The succession angle The succession angle of all of this So the bus is

As you mentioned They sell to Walter Right But they've got there Whatever it is 18% And you have to own 15% In order to be a governor for the team First of all before let me take a

What is the governor? What does that entail? When they keep on saying, Jeannie Bus is the governor. She couldn't have been the governor unless the bus has kept this amount. And now, you know, if they sell this amount,

Jeannie Bus will no longer be the governor. What is the governor? I'm smiling because I'm just hearing you, like in your like Tennessee accent, trying to say it like, governor. Like that too. I heard of say.

What is the governor? Making me happy. I mean, like, the boss, for lack of a better term, right? It's the person who goes to the board of governors and casts votes on behalf of the organization. But of who? Who does you get the board over? I mean, like, you run the organization. Like, when you are like, you're the most important, like, on paper basketball executive in the organization.

Now, if you're a 16. You serve you? No. Not in the eyes of the NBA. Now, if you have it in writing that you get to stay the governor. for five years, like, provided that, you know, this is how minority and majority ownership stuff, like, can get a little rocky if you're, and this is why this doesn't happen that often. Say Jeannie Bust doesn't want to vote.

Like, let's say that M.B. wants to abolish the salary. Or they only want to play 60 games or whatever. Like, these are the types of things that the governors in the league would vote. I love those ideas. Yeah. Like, like, like, okay. So, like, Governor Jacoby, you own 50% of the Lakers. Governor Vernon hates these ideas, right?

like you're the one who can actually cast the vote, right? Are you going to listen to the guy who owns 60%, 70% of the team? Are you going to do what you want? And if you don't do what you, like, if you have an impaid writing that you have your job for five years, which Jeannie has in writing, you know, from the Walter sale, you might just do what you want. So is hers different, the reason, and I'm interested you say in writing, because remember this happened with Cuban? Yep. Cuban's going to get to stay on. And then they get the sale done and they say,

all right, get out of here. Lessons were learned. And then in the Western Conference and he's not even in the camera shot. Well, then it happened in Boston, right? Lessons were learned. No, no, no, no, no. Gross back's going to run it.

Don't worry. Like, there's going to be a smooth transition. And then as soon as they bought the thing, they're like, yeah, you're out of here. We're not doing this. Yeah, because it's messy. Okay. So hers is in writing.

Yeah. And now, she will remain it for five. years, which is something Iger said he would honor. Okay. So can we get into like the goofy, like probate law, weird parts about like the trust and how this works, which is so the team is not owned by Jeannie Bus or by Jesse Bus or Johnny Bus or Janie Bus specifically. It's owned by trust, right?

That operates as sort of an inanimate object that has six beneficiaries to the trust, which are, you know, six of his children. and they're each, you know, one-sixth of a beneficiary of this trust. The trust says three trustees. Generally speaking, the job of the trustee is to do what the vote says, right? And because they had these tag-along rights, there was like, you know, they had been kind of hyming and hawing about, like, getting out anyways. I mean, the vote to Walter was 6-0, you know, on paper.

In functionality, it was 4-2, right? Joey and Jesse Bus did not want to sell to Mark Walter. They wanted to stay owners of the Lakers. But they went along with them. Genie did. Jeannie did want to sell. She wanted to sell. Yeah. She was the swing vote.

Right. It was like the general sort of idea about the West family was that the older siblings, Janie Bus, Janie Bus, Jim Bus, Johnny Bus all wanted to sell always. Right. And that Jeannie as a governor, didn't want to sell. The younger boys wanted to eventually run the team, didn't want to sell. There were

intricacies like in the trust like about like a last man standing clause, which would always like push down like it's not as simple as this, but like the idea was, was that like it starts at six, well then the trust moves to five and then it moves to four and then it moves to three. So like whoever's alive the longest has the biggest piece of the trust, right? Okay. Do they? Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to say, but like I think in this case, right, like, you know, Jeannie then, when she does this deal with Mark Walter, you know, by keeping above 15%, and because it's a family trust, she's able to act as the governor, even though she doesn't own all 15%.

Now, if she were to buy, my understanding at least, of this right now, if she were to go tomorrow, let's say the bus family decides they're all going to sell and that Jeannie wants to buy 15% so she can still be governed, right? And Bob Auger's like, cool. It's got to be 15% of her money. Like, she can't, it can't be like, I own 5% and then I've got a sovereign wealth fund putting in some stuff, and I've got like some stuff like that. Like, it won't work that way. So, I mean, really, it seems like to me right now. Has she got that kind of money? I don't know what Jeannie? Oh, okay. No. And what is, what is her case? Like, she's fighting against this, but like, you know, there's always, there's two sides to every argument. What is, what are her lawyers and what

What is her stance? Because I don't really see it. Yeah. So in 2017, after she fired Jimbus as GM and hired Rob Blink and Matt Johnson, the brothers, like, kind of like, quote unquote, like hatched a plan, right? Like, this is the way it's been sort of reporter through the years. You might want to use the word coup or other things to get Jeannie moved off the board of directors, sort of force her out of power, right? Genie went to court and those powers were like, like, she won, right? She won in court.

And in those court, like court documents, there's wording in there that talks about how the trust must like always, like always for her lifetime. Like she is a governor. She's a trustee. Like that is her, their job is like she is the controlling owner as long as she's alive, right? There are other wording in there, though, like about like reasonable circumstances changing and different things like that. Like this is where the argument will be made in court, which will be like,

how much of this 2017 ruling that Jeannie seems to use as, you know, in the letter that her lawyer wrote to the siblings that really was written to everybody because we all got it. You know, it's like there. She's DCC the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The random like, here you go reporters, like, type of letter. Everybody looked, like, you know, in that letter, like, I mean, that's what's cited, right? Now, we'll see how.

how this plays out. Like again, like this is all happening at a time, like, running parallel with the fact that Walter seems to be on a timeline here to get a deal done. I will say, everybody, I keep talking, everybody, everybody, by and large, with, like, very few exceptions. Most people believe that, like, these two things can run their course simultaneously and everybody can feel satisfied to some degree. That even if this, the bus thing drags more than it needs to, that like the primary part of the sale between Walter and Kushner and Iger, you know, we need a better name for them, by the way, like, I'm just like they need a group name or something.

Right. The between the new group and the Walter group, that can, it seems like that's on track, right? Like, even, like, even regardless of all this stuff, it's on true. Do the buses all hate each other or do they just disagree about business? I mean, current It's a little binary. I think that Like, you know, I got it, right?

People are not. They're currently, I mean, it seems like at every time they've all hated each other at some point. Joey and Jesse are very close. They do not get together for holidays. Thanksgiving is not happening. They're very united. Joey and Jesse.

They just bought a piece of the San Diego Padres. They're a part of the Feliciano group. Ironically enough, a Mark Walter rival team in the same division. So Joey and Jesse, they're close. Yeah. Is Jeannie close with any of the other,

the five that voted against her? I mean, like, I don't want to speak specifically like now, but I mean, yeah, like I think at times certainly like, I mean, you know,

she's been close with Janie. She's been close with Jim. She's been close with Johnny. You know, I think that they've all worked for the Lakers and they've all don't work there anymore. And she does. and there has been bad feelings about that through the years.

I mean, I want to, I wish I could come here guys and say, like, the succession thing is, like, lazy nonsense. Like, we got to do better, you know, when we describe this stuff. But, like, it's for real. It's pretty spot on. Sometimes, like, the surface thing is the right thing. And, like, yeah, it's a very complicated family. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer.

That's why every step and dollar. raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca.com. So Dan, let's go back to basketball. Walker Kessler, how is he going to fix this? This is ridiculous. This is one of the dumbest contracts. seen. Is Walker Kessler the answer? Like, that guy?

Like that, that, oh, we're going to take out LeBron James and bring in Colin Sexton and Walker Kessler and now we're going to be a contender. The five Walker Kessler games last year didn't do it for you. Is that, what are we doing? And is that contract why Mark Walter is selling?

No, no. So, I'll make the argument for those songs. All right. And you can vote. All ears. Yeah. Okay. So again, we talk about Star Service.

Like, Luke Godinches just wanted to play with the best center they could get their hands in, right? The center market right now is in a really strange place where, like, the really, really high-end guys are certainly weren't getable for the Lakers, right? And the low-end group that was available, like, were never, like, needle-movie enough to, like, invest assets bound, right? like I'll give you a name that Laker fans talked about a lot, right? It was like Nick Claxton. All right. Oh, he's a lot there. He's a rim protector.

He's like 210 pounds too, right? Like is that that wasn't the guy they wanted. Like there was one track that was like, go find me my Daniel Gafford. Right. Like you don't need to bring. I don't need an all star. I don't need like a lottery level talent. Like I just need a guy who can jump and who can protect the rim and do that.

Right. That was like one thought process. The list of like Daniel Gafford. players in the NBA. Like, guys, I've done this since the Luca trade. It's just shorter than people realize. It's not a long list. We got like Mitch Robinson.

Well, no. And by the way, that would have been plan B. Yeah. But even those guys got like the bad the bad injury guys, right? Like Mitch Robinson. Mitch Robinson is not a lot. I'm a Nick fan.

Yeah, Derek lively. You know, Daniel Gaffer's head injury. Love Derek Laverty's rookie year. Loved it. Yeah. Haven't seen since. Hey, hey. You can always trade two second round picks for Isaiah Stewart. Let's go! Let's go!

That actually would be a good fit, to be honest with you. Not a bad. You know, like, Eve's Mese was like a name that was kicked around. I mean, look, the Lakers, the Lakers looked, they called on Jared Allen. I don't know if they called, but like they were like, is Jerry Allen available? You know what I mean? Like, there just aren't that

many guys out there. And at a certain point, you're like talking about like, okay, like do we want like Jakub Pertil to play center? Is that like, do we want Robert Will? Can we do it with Robert Willis? Can we do it with Robert Williams is that like we trust him. They tried DeAndre Aden. They did this last year. Yeah. Right. And so they were like, we want a more permanent solution.

Among the permanent solutions, like Walker Kessler, they felt, and Luke Gadotches felt was the best, the best fit, right? The problem was he's a strictive reagent. Right. And to pry players loose and restrictive free agency is expensive. And the Lakers, like, that cost is basically everything. That's a thing, man. He's not a sorry player. It's just a, you know. It was a scarcity. They paid for scarcity in addition to paying.

Yeah. It's interesting. When you put it like that, I kind of get it. But like on the surface, I do not get it. Well, that's because he's made the most money of any non-all-star center ever. Sure. And like, by the way, if he's not, if he's not like all-star good or like in that like sort of like, you know, one of the best shop lockers in the NBA shooting like 70% averaging, you know, 16 and 10 type of player,

which he's, like, been that guy at times when he's been healthy. Like, you know, this is a guy who I think after his rookie year, right, was on the, who was on Team USA and the world championships. That team finished like seventh. But, like, he was on that team. He was getting paid $3.5 million. Yeah, totally agree. Totally great $4 million.

Like, love this guy in his rookie deal. So, okay, so that's, that's the castor. Well, let's set him aside. Yeah. What about the rest? So let's argue the rest of this, right? I mentioned analytics. Mamu Kellechevili, like, checks that box, big time for a lot of teams, a lot of interest

around him as an offense player. You know, you hear like Nasreeb comps, you know, is like a guy who can like really shoot the basketball at that size, not a great defender, but can shoot, dribble, make good decisions. And then, you know, I think with like Grimes was like a guy that JJ has talked about, you know, for years as a player he's really liked, really believes and worked out with him over a summer once. and Sexton is like, I mean, Rob Plinkas generally like small scoring guards. I've always loved him.

He's been on rat teams his entire career. All of these guys to this degree. I think this, the reason for me, like, obviously covering the Lakers last year was like awesome. It was a lot of fun. There's been a ton of drama to these last two years.

Basketball, I think I'm most intrigued by like this team because it's a version of Luka Laker fans having gotten this, which is like, If the Lucas secret sauce, like more than anything else, is that like, give him the rock and like let him elevate everyone around it. I went to Eurobasket last summer for, and I watched him play, you know, with the Slovenia national team.

And like you would see this, like, you know, no disrespect to his Slovenia national teammates. But like you would see like Gregor Horvatt or something like that. All of a sudden, like, you know, like, because the ball would pop to him and he's attacking the closing. Jacoby, I think the guys that they signed, not castles. The other guys that they sign,

all are like closeout killers. Right? Like you put the ball, you know, to a closeout that's flying at Quentin Grimes. Like, Quentin Grimes can attack it and go make a really good decision

and you're playing five on four or four on three. The same is true for Austin Reeves. The same is definitely true for Gallin-Saxon. He's probably not going to pass after he gets it. But like he's going to attack that close-out and can score the basketball. He's basically like worked his way up

to being almost like a 50, 40-90, guy offensively on very bad basketball teams. And I think that's the bet, right? And then the other part of the bill is that you look at the coaching. And this coaching step is one, you know, they've exceeded win-loss totals the last two years in terms of projections. They've had to piece together defenses with not good defensive players, you know, and they're going to have to do it again in some ways.

And, like, you know, they have Walker-Castling. You think JJ's good, don't you? He's very good. Yeah. He's very. I mean, you've covered a lot of... Dan is bullish on the Lakers. Well, he's covered...

I'm saying that's the argument for. Here's the argument against it. Walker Kester played five games, that's... And they're all... And if he doesn't... They're all cockedys and if he doesn't... And if he doesn't play, if he doesn't play,

Kvon Loonies are starting seven. I don't... I don't hate him. He played 22 games. Well, but that's... I don't know what the hell the Pelicans were doing. That was stupid. I don't know why they signed him. I don't know why they signed Kevin Luni.

Is that a good dude? People like him? I know. I mean like, you know, they need a primordy defense, right? Atis Thibel, like his turn himself, good shooter, can really guard the basketball. I love fibril. Played like 20 games last. Yeah.

Like, and the other thing did not like about their summer is like, I mean, they executed a plan. They did it like really, really fast. Like this was like, you know, the whole. hose was kinked, it uncanked. All the transactions flew out. And they didn't get a chance to, like, see the market. Right.

Had they waited, could they have gotten Peyton Watson at a discount? You know what I mean? Is that something that could have been available to them? Possibly. You know, had they, like, had that level of, you know, for thought or flexibility. But I think they had a plan. They executed it. It just so happened.

That plan was a lot of white guys. But, like, just so happened. But, like, I think, like, that was, they, like, they picked a lane. And, and I respect that. I respect lane in the NBA. Well, they're building out of Luka. Yeah, yeah. I've never covered a good team that doesn't.

Like, guys, there's one way to win right now today. There's one way. And it's you have a great player. Yeah, you have a great player. This is a great example. No, let's talk about the Knicks. You have a great player, like that dude. Josh Hart.

Right? We're talking about Mitchell, Andrew Shammett, Landry Shammett. Land, yeah. Liddy Jim. No, but like you have a player in Jalen Brunson. You build a roster that accentuates every one of his strengths and hides as many of his weaknesses as possible.

Because like we spent no week. We spent no time talking about him being a six-foot guard playing defense in the playoffs. It did because it didn't matter. Because the team defense functions fine because he's strong enough and it functions fine. When you have the right players around him, it is totally fine.

And the Lakers, they're not, But the Lakers took steps this summer to putting the right type of players around Luca. If you were going to keep Luca D'Ajic, and by the way, the Lakers, they want to keep Luca Dachich. If you're going to keep him and you think he's that guy, this is your chance. This is the way you do it. You don't, there's no other way. Do you think it's a big deal that he's taking everybody over to Slovenia?

Big deal? No, but not a nothing thing. I think, again, being around, it was really neat to be around. him with his national team last year. Like just to like kind of, I was over in Poland for like like eight days, nine days. And just like watching like these are guys that he's played with for a very, very long time.

Like being around Luca day to day, like Luca is like pretty low maintenance. He really likes his teammates. Like it's very like team, team team. It's not really how it looks on the court always. But like it is like he does like have genuine care for the people around him and knows I think for them to be good. they're going to have to like each other.

They're going to have to trust each other. And I think, like, yeah, the fact that, you know, that he paid for them to get on a plane and go, everybody but, you know, Cameron Carr, who's, like, stuck in, like, rookie training, I think, you know. Yeah. He's the only one when it can't go. Yeah, I mean, the two ways. A few other things, Dan.

Before they have to go to Palm Springs. Did the Lakers do all this crap over the course of the last week because they were tired of the clippers getting all of the drama news? about them. Yeah, right. Remember those 15 minutes on Monday? Because I don't. Like where that was like going to be the story of the week on Monday.

And I was like, oh my God. And for like two hours. And then this happened for me. Well, and you covered the Clippers for a long time. And so now like that's not your everyday beat. But like you're there. I'm around. And like, yeah.

And there are familiar. There are some familiar characters and all this. Look, I think, you know, the question to me always in all this. stuff for real is like obviously like people are speeding and the clippers are the only team in the they're not the only team in the NBA that's speeding like it just certainly looks like they were

going very very fast in a way that not everybody else is like I spoke to a player Hall of Famish level player Chris I'll tell you afterwards and you're going to scoff that I said Hall of Famish and and he told me he told me that it's like you know like players like talk

right like around the league like if someone's like getting like if it was like common for people to get like three million dollar like scoreboard endorsement deals I'm just like picking that number out of I'm not reporting to jumbo tron it's a deck trin's they're very important technology like like like if that was like a common practice um this player told me that he thought he would know about right that like that's just like the way that NBA players speak to each other about all sorts of stuff right um so like this does seem to be like different now the level I will say like every time I've talked to Clippers about this, like they have not been like, oh, well, like,

we'll see what happens when the investigation comes out. They have been like, we have done nothing. Like, right? Like, in a way like where they, if they're lying, like they've had to practice. Like the people that I talked to over there. They really feel. You think they believe that.

Sure. Now look, now these, just because they're not involved, too, you know, like what I don't think like any great conspiracy doesn't have like 90 people involved in it. probably be a pretty small room. But look, I mean, we'll see what happens. Like I said, I think the fact that one of the things we do know, right, was that credible or not, like, we do know that the Clippers were not the only team

that were asked about extra benefits in 2019. We know that other teams were asked, and they were comfortable enough asking, and the other teams were comfortable of saying no and not turning them. Believing someone has committed a crime, knowing someone has committed a crime, knowing someone has committed a crime and proving someone has committed to crime are three very different things. You know what I mean?

It's just like, it's very different things. Proving someone that's committed to crime is much more difficult than believing or knowing someone that's committed a crime. I always tell people like when I talk to young writers, I feel like there's like three buckets of information. There's like what we hear,

what we know, and what we can write. And like moving everything from one bucket to the next is like that's the job. Like that's the challenge in the job. It's getting something from what you hear to what you know. I remember early my career,

I wrote something once about something I heard and I got yelled at by Lawrence Frank. I think in hindsight it sounds absurd. But I had heard that they were interested

in Thaddeus Young when he was on the boss and I wrote it and he got pissed. He was very mad because they weren't interested to that he's saying. I was wrong.

But I had heard it. Like I didn't make it up. You know what I mean? But yeah. I like that young. I like that. I didn't do. They should.

have been. Yeah, I liked him. You should be interested. Yeah. Yeah. A long career. Faddi is young, by the way. Like, like, I like that he's good, too.

I was wrong. Yeah, I still feel. Still like, do you know what else like is like in that group, that bucket for me? Trey Liles. Still a believer. Oh, Trey Lyle-y holds. Still a believer. Oh, trust me.

I got a box of Marvin Bagley rookie cards if you all want them. So, funny story. I think you guys are like this. There's like this clip. I've never told the story publicly. So thankfully. this will never come back to Tommy. There's a clip that comes around every year

when Luca has like a 70 or 80 point game where his fan base talks they like cut to like what people said about him in the pre-draft process, right? They always go to this very specific clip of Colin Coward talking about Luca. What's not in that clip is that I'm sitting directly next to Colin Coward.

And it's not in this clip. It's absolutely true. And he's repeating what you said or something. No, no, thankfully. But, like, it was like one of those, like, do you take Aiton? Do you take Donchish? Do you take Tray Young? Do you take

Marvin Bagley, right? And I, like, I said at the time, I don't know, Colin. I think, like, Marvin Bagley is just, like, an offensive genius. And I was right. There was an offensive genius in that draft. Turns out it wasn't Marvin Bagley.

I was at multiple episodes on ESPN and I was like, Steph Curry is too small. He played in a small college. He will never make it in the NBA. He will get eaten up on defense. Like, I was anti-Stef Curry before the draft. My dad to this day,

I was on, the first TV I used to do in Southern California was I used to do Jim Rome's like CBS Sports Show. And Jim was great. He's always been great to me, would bring me down. And we would talk about, like, I was covering the clippers,

but he was like, oh, you like sports. you can be on TV just like study it. And like the thing is you have to have opinions about everything. Like they don't just ask me Clippers basketball questions when I'm on there. And there was one. It was like early season NFL game between the Packers and the 49ers. And they asked me who would have the better NFL career, Colin Kaepernick or Aaron Rogers.

And I wrote pretty hard for the wrong guy. Like my dad to this day, to this day was always like, do you remember on TV when you said Colin Kaepernick would, oh, yeah. He was like when you would say Colin Kaepernick was going to be. be way, way better than Erner Out just because of his arm strength. Do you remember that? We don't know what happens at the bus family holidays, but we definitely know what happens at the Waikki family. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. You don't get up on that. It's like freezing cold takes is like a real person and it's my father. That's amazing. He's just going to dish towel over his shoulder as he's just doing dishes the entire time. Well, I just do want to say, Dan, I've been a fan of him for a long time. It's so nice to actually get to do some media with you. And I want to thank you for your.

your coverage. And if you haven't followed all of his coverage of all of this stuff on the Athletic and the New York Times, make sure you do. And you're welcome to come back in the mismatch anytime. Excellent. Thank you so much for giving your time to us here today and announcing that Colin Kaepernick will have a better career than Aaron Rogers. Marvin Bagley. Perfect. Sigma cum laude. Offensive. Marvin Bagley is the Hall of Famous player that you were talking about earlier. I know that. now. Tramont, another one, East Coast for you? I was really, really high on Traymont Waters, like the 5'3 guy from LSU.

Only person. I know. Only person. I had like what I thought was rock solid scouting logic, which was like he's always been short. So he knows it's not going to matter that they're taller now. He was short when he played in seventh grade. This was like,

I thought it was like pretty solid. I thought it was a pretty solid belief. I can't tell you I was so strong. I was like, Steph Curry is going to amount to nothing. He won't even get a second. contract. He can't cover anybody. He's so thin. He's so short. He's so small. People just like him because of his

dad. He went to Davidson. Like, he had a nice tournament. But like, this guy's going to be nothing in the NBA. And now he's like, you know, arguably top 10. He's like the second best player of his generation. Yeah, it's thankfully nothing matters anymore, and we just run through these

things. And then we recycle them and they live for like 30 seconds. Exactly. Well, thanks so much for coming on. And I want to thank all our producers. I want to thank Chris Vernon, and we'll be back. Next week. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why

every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we

can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca.