Lakers Sold for 12.5 Billion, and the New Owners Admit They Have No Plan

Lakers sold for 12.5 billion dollars - and the new owners have no plan

The Los Angeles Lakers have been sold for the second time in 14 months. Mark Walter sold his 78 percent stake at a valuation of 12.5 billion dollars to a group led by former Disney boss Bob Iger and businessman Josh Kushner. The most interesting detail isn't the sum, it's the speed: the deal closed in roughly 72 hours. Iger openly admitted the new owners haven't made a single decision yet and that everything reaching the public is speculation. NBA reporter Jovan Buha warns the clock is ticking - media day and the season opener are less than two months away, and both the search for an assistant general manager and the roster itself are unresolved. Twelve billion spent on a franchise nobody yet knows what to do with.

Westbrook walks away after 18 seasons and 209 triple-doubles

Russell Westbrook announced the end of his career after 18 NBA seasons. Drafted fourth in 2008, he spent eleven seasons in Oklahoma City - first alongside Kevin Durant, then as the face of the franchise. The 2016/17 season remains his monument: an average of 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds and 10.4 assists, the second player in history to average a triple-double, and the MVP award. He finished with career averages of 20.9 points, 8 assists and 6.9 rebounds across 1,301 games, nine All-Star selections, and a record of 209 triple-doubles that looks untouchable. He turned down offers from Sacramento and Washington and left on his own terms, a rare privilege in a sport where most players are shown the door by somebody else's decision. LeBron James wrote him „what a career, the Hall of Fame is next” - and good luck arguing with that.

EuroLeague scraps the double round robin and brings in conferences

The 20-team format where everyone plays everyone will be used for the last time in 2026/27, with expansion and conferences arriving in 2027/28. The news came from Armani Olimpia Milan general manager Christos Stavropoulos, who said the 20-team decision had been extended by one more year, but that this is definitively the last one. Under the new system some clubs won't meet twice - „you lose something, you gain something”, as he put it. For Balkan fans this isn't a technical story: fewer guaranteed duels means fewer guaranteed European nights for Partizan and Crvena Zvezda, depending on how the conferences are drawn. An expansion that sounds like more basketball may well mean fewer big games for the clubs that actually fill their arenas.

Macedonia's cadets came back from „minus 18” to beat Hungary

Macedonia's under-16 basketball team beat Hungary 95:76 at the European Championship B Division and secured a place in the battle for 13th. The story is how they got there: late in the second quarter they trailed by 18 points (33:51). They won the third period 33:15, led 69:68 going into the final ten minutes, and then simply stretched it out. Shabani finished with a double-double of 24 points and 11 rebounds, Kotevski added 22 and Konevski 17. Coach Dejan Stojanovski said afterwards that this is a team and that they need 40 minutes like this every time. The comeback is a fine thing, but the coach's sentence carries a reproach too: if the team can play like this, why does it need an 18-point hole to show it?

Partizan keeps buying, closes in on another NBA player

Partizan isn't leaving the market, despite already bringing in seven new players this summer. According to reports, the club has finalised a deal with guard Ethan Thompson from the Indiana Pacers. The black-and-whites are clearly trying to fix their rotation before a season in which the EuroLeague plays its old format for the last time. Spending like this usually reads as ambition, but it can just as easily read as impatience - seven new names in one summer means the existing squad convinced nobody. Where the line sits between building a team and constantly reshuffling the deck will become clear once Partizan actually starts playing.