Lon Rosen took over the business side of the Los Angeles Lakers in the aftermath of Mark Walter’s acquisition of the team last year at a $10 billion valuation. As a former Lakers employee dating back to the early 1980s, one who went on to represent Magic Johnson, the Los Angeles Dodgers exec was the perfect bridge to help meld two of the most powerful pro sports teams.Predictably, there were some bumps. Walter’s purchase was as much a merger as anything else, and as a result, there were redundancies. And that meant layoffs as the Lakers began reorganizing priorities.Another unpopular change: Employees who had settled into hybrid work-from-home and office routines were now expected back inside the Lakers’ offices in El Segundo, Calif., five days a week. The policy was relaxed during the summer, and the building was emptier.But on Aug. 12, the parking lot was packed. The hallways were full. No one needed to be told to come to work.One source within the organization said their coworkers all made sure to show up that day. The Lakers, for the second time in 14 months, had been sold, and everyone wanted to see what would happen next.The Athletic talked to more than a half-dozen current Laker employees, all speaking on condition of anonymity to openly discuss the state of affairs inside the organization as it again transitions from one ownership group to the next.In the time since Bob Iger and Josh Kushner agreed to purchase control of the Lakers at a $12.5 billion valuation, not much has changed fundamentally inside the Lakers’ walls. Rosen, according to sources, is still heavily involved in meetings.Everything we know about the Lakers being sold againDan WoikeThe Lakers are still conducting interviews for multiple positions, sources say. A job posting for a video producer was posted to the sports-industry job site, Teamwork Online, two weeks ago.But other sources, including high-ranking ones, have acknowledged that high-end positions, particularly in basketball operations, aren’t actively being filled. While some people in the organization push back on the notion that the Lakers are in a “hiring freeze,” multiple sources acknowledged that it would be foolish for the organization to make hires of consequence while in this strange moment of its history.That likely includes the assistant general manager position Rob Pelinka said the Lakers planned on hiring this offseason to handle personnel and scouting. The team hired Rohan Ramades as its assistant general manager of strategy and data systems at the end of the season, and he’s made positive early impressions. It also offered the other assistant general manager job to Minnesota’s Steve Senior and Philadelphia’s Prosper Karangwa, but both executives elected to remain with their teams.Conversations about a front-office build-out are ongoing, one source said, but it’s not fully clear how or when the lead of much-needed pro scouting staff will be installed.The Lakers, in a practical sense, are still owned by Walter and the Buss Family Trust. The Lakers are operating as such, despite the agreed deal with Iger and Kushner. Jeanie Buss is still the operating governor, even while her siblings voted 5-0 (she abstained) to go along with the sale to Iger and Kushner and sell their remaining shares. Jeanie Buss has filed a motion to contest that vote.When it changes, it changes. But for now, the status quo remains.The pending changes — Iger and Kushner’s groups are in their “diligence” phase of the purchase — have certainly caused some anxiety for employees bracing for another ownership change. The last transition, from the longstanding familial touches of the Buss family to a more bottom-line-driven Walter regime, included multiple rounds of layoffs.Still, multiple sources in different departments expressed optimism about the direction of the franchise under Iger and Kushner. Some felt the Dodgers’ impact on the Lakers was pushing too hard toward analytics and doing so with an arrogance that turned off some people in basketball operations and the locker room. Those people weren’t upset to see a pathway for new management to come in, even if it’s a bit of a mystery and doesn’t have the track record of the Dodgers’ success.Largely, it’s left Lakers employees unmoved. The last year-plus has been chaotic, full of philosophical change, new coworkers and procedures. The shock from the previous sale was so fresh in their memories that another round of shocking phone alerts and text messages felt fairly familiar.Through it all, the rank and file in the Lakers organization march on. Winning is still the goal. The work doesn’t stop. The waves of change that have crashed up against them for the last year-plus haven’t stopped either.It’s why on the day of the sale, inside the Lakers’ hallways, there wasn’t outward panic. One source said he would just look at his coworkers and laugh and shrug, the reality of another shakeup almost too wild to be believed.