Less than a month after the NBA approved Mark Walter as the Lakers’ new majority owner, the longtime Dodgers chief has begun to reshape the franchise with the precision of someone who has rebuilt dynasties before.
And on Friday morning, that transformation took a striking new step. Two of the sharpest minds in Major League Baseball—Farhan Zaidi and Andrew Friedman—are now stepping into advisory roles with the Lakers’ front office.
For a franchise built on legacy, it felt like watching an era turn over like a page in an old, well-worn playbook.
Zaidi, known across baseball as an architect of analytics and competitive recalibration, arrives as more than a consultant. He becomes Walter’s voice inside the organization, the steady hand guiding a chaotic transition that has unfolded at breakneck speed. He’s less like a visitor from another sport and more like an executive helping construct the framework of TWG Sports, the umbrella entity Walter created to oversee the Dodgers, Lakers, and Sparks. He’s already been advising the Sparks. Now his reach stretches into one of basketball’s most storied franchises.
Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations and a three-time World Series champion executive, enters the fold with a lighter touch. His conversations with Rob Pelinka have reportedly centered on building structure, creating stability, and lending the kind of championship-tested perspective that transcends the boundaries of the diamond. His role may be quieter, but his presence signals something larger: Walter wants winning to feel systemic, inevitable.
All of this unfolded less than 24 hours after Joey and Jesse Buss—longtime front-office figures and part-owners tied deeply to the roots of the Buss family legacy—were abruptly terminated.
It was a reminder that even the most sacred institutions are not immune to reinvention.
The $10 billion sale that transferred majority ownership from the Buss family to Walter was always going to redraw the map. Jeanie Buss will remain the team’s governor for at least five years, a bridge between what the Lakers were and what they might become. But Walter’s arrival, and his immediate decision to fold Zaidi and Friedman into his inner circle, sends a message that resonates across every layer of Los Angeles sports: collaboration is no longer a buzzword—it’s the business model.
The Dodgers have thrived under a vision that blends analytics, instinct, resources, and relentless pursuit of an edge. The Lakers, now formally aligned under the TWG Sports banner, are being built with that same philosophy in mind.
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Source: NBC Los Angeles