A text from Dallas, a wake-up in Slovenia
Luka Doncic was one of the very few people outside the deal who sensed the Lakers were about to change hands. A new ESPN report lays out how the news reached him before the sale became public on August 12.
His manager, Lara Beth Seager, got a tip well after midnight at her home in Dallas that something big might be happening. She texted Doncic, who was just waking up in Slovenia. It was the first odd-hour message of its kind since February 2025, when she reached him after midnight to say he had been traded to Los Angeles.
By the time Seager called to confirm the deal was done, Doncic had already absorbed the surprise. “There’s not much that can shock me anymore,” he told her.
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If the sale to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger goes through, Doncic would have had five different team owners across two franchises in three years. The NBA still has to approve the new group, and sources told ESPN that is expected by the end of the year or early next year.
The report also fills in the other side of the story. Jeanie Buss learned that Mark Walter had agreed to sell his shares only hours before ESPN broke the news that morning, according to people familiar with her conversations. Sources close to her say she was stunned. Walter’s stake had given him the first right of refusal on the Buss family’s controlling shares, and she did not see this outcome coming when she first approached him in 2021.
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