The Los Angeles Lakers are expanding their front office under new owner Mark Walter, and HoopsHype reported a short list of high-profile targets that underscores the scale of the effort.
HoopsHype's Michael Scotto reported that the Lakers' list of potential targets includes Prosper Karangwa, Eric Amsler and Bart Taylor. The Athletic's Dan Woike wrote on Feb. 6 that the club was planning "significant hires," and the Lakers' own general manager, Rob Pelinka, said the plan is for the team to hire two assistant general managers this offseason.
One of those assistant general managers will be tasked primarily with overseeing the draft and player evaluation processes. The other will be relied on for strategy with the salary cap, data and analytics. Those two clear roles explain why the Lakers are hunting executives with different résumés and skill sets.
The names Scotto reported carry clear resumes: Prosper Karangwa has worked in the Philadelphia 76ers front office since October 2020. Eric Amsler has been with the Miami Heat since the 2004-05 season when he started as an intern and has served as vice president of player personnel since the 2023-24 season. Bart Taylor just finished his 13th season overall with the Utah Jazz and his fourth as vice president of player personnel.
Those outside hires follow a separate, related development: Steve Senior was also on the Lakers' list, but he passed on an offer from the Lakers to remain in his current job. That decline left the Lakers looking to swing for established evaluators and analytics-minded executives alike.
The timing of the push matters. The Lakers finished the regular season 53-29 and earned the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference. They beat the Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs and were swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round. The postseason results make the front-office expansion more than theoretical: the team is pushing to change how it evaluates players and manages its roster now, not at some distant date.
Context for the strategy is explicit inside the organization: the front-office expansion is being described as a move to more closely resemble the Dodgers' model. Walter is the controlling partner of the Dodgers as part of the Guggenheim group that purchased the MLB franchise in 2012, and the Lakers' effort reflects an intent to build a deeper, more specialized front office around Pelinka.
That last point creates the central tension. Pelinka will remain the primary decision-maker in the Lakers' front office even as the club builds layers beneath him. Recruiting top personnel from other organizations — executives who have spent long stretches with the 76ers, Heat and Jazz — signals serious intent, but it also raises questions about how responsibilities will be divided, how quickly new hires can be integrated, and whether top candidates will accept the roles offered. Steve Senior's decision to stay put is the clearest sign so far that landing preferred targets is not guaranteed.
Given the announced plan for two assistant general managers with distinct mandates — draft and player evaluation on one side, salary-cap strategy and analytics on the other — the Lakers are creating the blueprint they believe will address both scouting and roster construction. Pelinka's remaining the final arbiter suggests the franchise will try to add expertise without surrendering a single point of control.
The most consequential outcome ahead is straightforward: if the Lakers fill those two roles with the type of executives Scotto identified, the franchise will have rebuilt its front-office architecture with an emphasis on evaluation and analytics, while keeping Pelinka at the helm. Whether that structure closes the gaps exposed in the Thunder series will be the test the hires are hired to meet.
