The Bounce Newsletter | This is The Athletic’s daily NBA newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Bounce directly in your inbox.Want to know who the stars of the future are? The NBA has a new web miniseries called “Road to Peach Jam.” Top prospects in the EYBL like Beckham Black, Colton Hiller, JJ Crawford, AJ Williams and many more are highlighted in this cool look into summer high school hoops. There are five episodes, but you’ll want to watch the first one here. These hoopers will make you hope the 3-2-1 lottery system is favorable to your favorite team.Shocking saleWhy did the Lakers change hands again?It was barely 14 months ago when Dodgers owner Mark Walter blew the doors off NBA franchise valuations by purchasing the Los Angeles Lakers for $10 billion. That was the price for taking it out of the hands of the Buss family, although Jeanie Buss was contractually allowed to remain the team governor for five years. On Wednesday morning, we got the bombshell news that Walter’s stint as Lakers owner was coming to an abrupt end.Walter is selling the Lakers for $12.5 billion, a $2.5 billion profit from his original purchase price. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger and venture capitalist Joshua Kushner are headlining the purchasing group. Uh … what? Why would Walter already be flipping this franchise, even with the $2.5 billion increase in purchase price? Isn’t this way too soon? Is he in some sort of HGTV pilot for “Flip This Franchise” or something?I have a lot of questions about this sudden sale of the Lakers. I guess it’s time to talk to myself with a little Q&A.Was this something we should have seen coming? Absolutely not. Walter was supposed to revamp the Lakers’ front office and operations to have much more depth — much like his Dodgers franchise.To buy a team for $10 billion and then flip it for $12.5 billion, this must have been a long time in the works, right? Nope! Not at all. According to our look into the sale, Kushner came to Walter about this idea last Friday. What?! How is it even possible? This group was looking into ownership of the proposed Las Vegas expansion team but decided an established brand like the Lakers was a better use of their investment.Wait, when you say Kushner, do you mean … ? Yes, I do! That’s the younger brother of Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law. And yes, it’s the same Iger who used to run ESPN and Disney. Plus, I’m guessing, there are a lot of other investors, because based on some very lazy Google searches by me, their estimated net worths don’t come close to $12.5 billion. My guess is Iger is more of a figurehead than anything, to remind people of Disney and such.OK, so this deal came together in like five days. Is anything holding it up? Kushner is part owner of the Miami Heat, so he’ll have to sell that stake in Heat Culture before he can complete this purchase.What else has to happen? The NBA’s Board of Governors still has to approve the sale.Will Jeanie remain governor like previously agreed to with Walter? Iger said they’re going to honor that agreement. He also said if things need to change, then they’ll change. So basically nobody knows. I would guess not.
The Bounce: Dissecting the Lakers’ stunning $12.5 billion sale
Zach Harper catches you up on the latest NBA news in our newsletter.
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