The Lakers front office felt like a different arena on Wednesday, and not in a good way for everyone. More than a dozen business-side employees were told their roles were being cut as the franchise jumps into a sweeping reorganization under new ownership, even while the basketball side ramps up hiring and big-ticket projects. For fans and staffers, it is a jarring reminder of how fast the team is reshaping life both on the court and in the cubicles.
Layoffs Hit Multiple Departments
According to Yahoo Sports, which cites reporting from ESPN, the Lakers informed more than a dozen people on the business side that they were being let go as part of the overhaul. The cuts touched departments that help power the brand off the floor, including marketing, team communications, content and corporate partnerships.
Reporters who work the Lakers beat described the mood in the building as tense and emotional. Dan Woike of The Athletic said he was told the day was described as "brutal" inside team offices, a word that quickly started circulating among those following the shakeup. Heavy and other outlets passed along similar on-the-record and background accounts from people familiar with how the decisions landed.
Business Cuts, Basketball Hires
Even as the business operation trims staff, the Lakers are adding bodies and brainpower on the basketball side. This week, the team hired Rohan Ramadas as assistant general manager for strategy and data systems. NBA.com (AP) reports that Ramadas will oversee analytics and strategic initiatives for basketball operations, an increasingly central piece of how modern rosters are built.
On the corporate side, the franchise has already brought in Michael Spetner as chief strategy and growth officer and Ryan Kantor as vice president of global partnerships, two hires that import experience from the Dodgers front office into El Segundo. Those appointments have been detailed by outlets including Sports Business Journal and LakersNation.
The Lakers have also tried to bolster their basketball brain trust by adding veteran coach Tony Bennett as a draft consultant earlier this year. The Los Angeles Times reported that Bennett, a former Virginia coach and NCAA champion, is advising the club during the draft process.
G League Moves and Facility Plans
The overhaul is not limited to staffing charts. The Lakers are shifting their G League affiliate out of the South Bay and into the Coachella Valley starting with the 2026-27 season, a move the organization says will open up badly needed space at the UCLA Health Training Center in El Segundo. ClutchPoints and team announcements note that the rebranded Coachella Valley Lakers will play at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert.
Inside the organization, that relocation is being sold as a two-for-one move, both a business expansion into a new market and a player-development upgrade that gives prospects a true arena setting while freeing up practice-facility bandwidth in Los Angeles.
Pelinka: Labs, Movement Work and a 'Full Rebuild'
President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka has been just as eager to talk about construction as he is about lineups. He told reporters that the practice facility will be remodeled to include new sports-science spaces, such as a biomechanics lab, a movement lab and an expanded recovery area, and noted that some of the planning work is being done in collaboration with Dodgers personnel.
Pelinka said those upgrades are already in motion and are expected to continue through the offseason, "hopefully culminating in and around the Summer League in Vegas," according to coverage of his end-of-season remarks. ABC7 and LakersNation both carried Pelinka's comments as part of a broader description of what he has called a full rebuild of the organization.
Ownership Context
All of this is happening under the umbrella of a new ownership structure. The staffing shakeup is part of a wider reset that followed last year's agreement for Mark Walter to buy a controlling stake in the Lakers at a reported $10 billion valuation. AP reported the sale in June 2025, and since then the new leadership group has moved quickly to rework the front office with executives steeped in global partnerships, analytics and commercial growth.
For those who lost their jobs this week, the timing is a stark reminder that ownership changes often ripple through a franchise's corporate ranks even as the basketball operation grows. Team officials have framed the moves as long-term investments in scouting, analytics and player performance. Critics and some insiders counter that the human cost of cross-organization shakeups will be felt most by staffers who were not carried into the new structure.
That tension is now part of the Lakers' offseason narrative, sharing space with free agency, the draft and a retooled operations model under new leadership. The basketball product will eventually show whether the strategy works. For now, the loudest changes are being heard in the hallways, not the locker room.
