Andrew Friedman’s job was fairly straightforward.
Mark Walter, the billionaire chief executive of the financial and investment advisory firm Guggenheim Partners, had spent a record-setting sum to purchase one of America’s iconic sports franchises, a crown jewel in a prime market with a rich history: the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Two years into his tenure, the team was good. Really good. But Walter wanted more. He believed he had the blueprint, too. If he could add on a state-of-the-art, data-driven front office, one where no expense would be spared and no edge would go unexplored, he’d have the makings of a juggernaut, one that would dominate on the field and become a cash cow in the process.
To execute that plan, he pried Friedman, widely regarded as one of the best minds in Major League Baseball, away from the Tampa Bay (then-Devil) Rays in October 2014 and named him president of baseball operations. A few weeks later Friedman pried Farhan Zaidi away from Billy Beane’s Oakland Athletics and named him Dodgers GM. Together, they turned the Dodgers into an organization widely regarded as one of the most sophisticated and successful in all of sports. They’ve won three titles over the past six years.
“When Andrew went to the Dodgers, their processes and systems were lagging behind the rest of baseball,” a longtime MLB executive told Yahoo Sports. “Andrew was not only able to catch them up — he pushed them to the forefront of things like player evaluation and performance science.”
A little more than a decade later, Walter appears to be attempting to duplicate that blueprint in a different sport. And once again he’s empowered Friedman and Zaidi to spearhead that transformation.
In October, Walter became the majority owner of the Los Angeles Lakers. That means that this offseason will be the first in nearly 50 years in which the Buss family does not hold majority control.
For years, the Lakers have operated with one of the NBA’s thinnest front offices. A small player performance and medical group. A tiny analytics team. No assistant GMs. Even JJ Redick, after being hired as head coach in June 2024, told a friend he was surprised by how lean the team was behind the scenes.
But what happens when one of the NBA’s most storied teams, long run like a tight-fisted mom-and-pop shop, is taken over by a free-spending ownership group with a track record of building one of sports’ most sophisticated operations? And what happens when that new owner empowers a pair of venerated baseball executives to help lead the way?
This — not . “Obviously, it’s easy to set our goals to win a championship. But we feel like creating that culture not only attracts and retains star-level players but also helps get the most out of their ability. I feel like we’ve really gotten to a point where it is incredibly strong.”
The Lakers, of course, have never had much trouble selling themselves as a destination. But today’s NBA is increasingly being shaped by organizations whose edges come not from glamour, but infrastructure. The Lakers have always been able to offer stars a stage. Now, with Walter at the helm and Friedman and Zaidi lending a hand, they may soon be able to offer the machinery to match.