The Lakers began their front office transformation under Mark Walter with the hiring of Lon Rosen, replacing Tim Harris as President of Business Operations. While his role has no on-court impact, it does represent the changes that are coming.
However, don’t expect Rob Pelinka to be one of those changes.
Rosen spoke to reporters before Tuesday’s game against the Magic and confirmed that Pelinka would remain in his role as President of Basketball Operations.
Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi’s continued involvement with the Lakers’ front office is interesting. On one hand, it appears the Dodgers and Lakers could be operating under one umbrella moving forward with Rosen going from one franchise to the other.
However, if you want to be more cynical, it could also be a matter Friedman and Zaidi overseeing how the front office is operating and whether Pelinka should be the one in charge moving forward. There definitely is some overall observing and evaluating to report back to Walter. Those two are not just trusted executives under Walter but also have had success as well.
This also doesn’t mean that there won’t be more people hired around him. Almost assuredly, there will be more voices in the front office, which can only be a good thing. It’ll be a big change for the Lakers, who have operated with a small circle under Pelinka.
The other interesting aspect from Rosen was that Magic Johnson will not have a role in the front office. Depending on the tweet you saw, though, it came across very differently.
How you feel about this depends on your faith in Rosen, Walter and the new front office. Given their track record of success with the Dodgers, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that Magic will continue to have the “role” he has now, which is being around the team for events but nothing else.
Some skepticism is both natural and fair. This current Lakers front office has given no reason to be confident. But Walter and Friedman and Zaidi have had success, so it might be time for a cautious amount of trust.
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