Rob Pelinka is apparently smiling through the metaphorical fire going on around him right now.
The Los Angeles Lakers GM Pelinka is “excited” about the team’s incoming new ownership and thinks that the change is a “good thing,” Pete Zayas of The Athletic reported this week on an episode of the “Lakers Collective” podcast. Zayas does add though that Pelinka’s position may be “less safe” than it previously was.
This news comes with the Lakers undergoing a major change up top right now. Majority owner Mark Walter just agreed in principle last week to sell a controlling stake in the team to an ownership group led by Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner.
But then the subsequent bombshell news broke earlier this week that the Buss family (who had originally sold the controlling stake to Walter in 2025) had decided by a 5-1 vote to sell their remaining 17.8 percent minority stake in the team. Jeanie Buss, who is still currently the governor of the Lakers, did not agree to sell and is apparently ready to fight her siblings in court.
As for Pelinka, 56, he has been the GM of the Lakers since 2017. He was a Jeanie Buss hire through and through, currying favor with her as the former agent for the late Lakers icon Kobe Bryant.
Pelinka, who was also later given the additional title of Lakers president of basketball operations, helped lead the team to the 2020 NBA championship and later orchestrated the franchise-altering trade acquisition of Luka Doncic in 2025. But previous reports had already suggested that Pelinka was on thin ice in L.A., which could now easily be the case once again if Iger and Kushner decide that they want to make their own GM hire.
