Luka Doncic Shares His Excitement After Lakers Sell for $12.5 Billion: “No Limit to the Potential”

The Los Angeles Lakers have new owners after Josh Kushner and former Disney supremo Bob Iger purchased it from Mark Walter.

Luka Doncic Shares His Excitement After Lakers Sell for $12.5 Billion: “No Limit to the Potential”

Luka Doncic (Image via Barstool Sports/X)

14 months ago, Mark Walter paid $10 billion to Jeanie Buss and her family to purchase a majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers. There was genuine hope that the new owner would give Luka Doncic everything he needs to turn it into a championship-winning outfit.

After LeBron James led the franchise to its 17th NBA title in the 2020 bubble, the team has struggled to relive those moments. While most of the blame was pointed at the team’s inability to bring in proper reinforcements, the reality lay elsewhere.

Time and again, it was reported that the Buss family were the poorest owners in the league. That meant the most marketable basketball franchise did not have the means to invest in and improve the team’s facilities and personnel.

Jeanie Buss’ lack of financial firepower saw her cut corners when it came to bringing in the best staff. That was highlighted when they backed out of meeting Dan Hurley‘s salary demands.

With Walter’s billions now powering changes, the growing belief was that the Lakers could become a juggernaut in the same way his Los Angeles Dodgers have become. But now, that has changed.

Being a Laker means everything to me, and I’m excited to get back on the court and bring a championship to LA. I’ve gotten used to big changes over these last few years, but I know that no matter what, there is no limit to the potential of this iconic franchise. I look forward to meeting Josh and Bob so we can get to work building something special in LA together.

Luka Doncic wrote on X

This is the six-time All-NBA First-Teamer, showing his excitement about the potential the Lakers can achieve when their new owners, Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, start making decisions.

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Josh Kushner and Bob Iger paid Mark Walter $12.5 Billion to purchase Lakers

When Mark Walter paid Jeanie Buss and her family $10 billion for essentially 80% of the Lakers, many thought that it was mind-blowing for someone to pay that much for a sports team.

New Lakers owners Josh Kushner and Bob Iger
New Lakers owners Josh Kushner and Bob Iger (Image via Purple & Gold Brazil/X)

Sure, sports franchises in the country were booming in value, with the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Cowboys often touted as $10 billion organizations. But no one expected the Lakers to be worth that much.

Both the Warriors and Cowboys owners own the respective arenas the teams play in. This helps generate significant revenue, which is not easy when a team has to lease an arena.

The Lakers lease Crypto.com Arena from former minority owner Philip Anschutz. That is why the $10 billion sale price surprised everyone when the Boston Celtics, the winningest franchise in the NBA and another team that does not own its arena, sold for ‘just’ $6.1 billion.

Maybe Josh Kushner and Bob Iger felt that the purple and gold franchise’s value was far beyond the gate receipts they could get from the Crypto.com Arena and handed over $12.5 billion to Mark Walter in exchange for his ownership shares.

That sets the record for the most expensive sports franchise sale, as it easily beats the $9.6 billion record set by Vinod Khosla when he purchased defending Super Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks, a month ago.

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New Lakers owners were in line to win upcoming Las Vegas expansion team

The news of the Lakers selling for that much surprised many, as no one expected Mark Walter to sell the team this soon. At the same time, one wondered why the new owners would overpay when they could have bid for the upcoming expansion team in Las Vegas for far less.

Clearly, they had their financials in order, because they were in the expansion process… They’ve already been vetted to some extent by the NBA if you’re this far down the road with the expansion in Vegas… Why buy Vegas when you can buy L.A. You can buy an established team, a brand, with a superstar that’s in place.

Ramona Shelburne revealed on the Pat McAfee Show

This means that both Josh Kushner and Bob Iger were in line to win the Vegas bid. But it seems the lure of owning one of the most prestigious and popular sports franchises in the world, and the fact that the expansion team would end up costing as much, made this deal sensible.

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