just left the squad for the Philadelphia 76ers <\/a>after spending eight years and winning one title with the Lakers.<\/p>\nThe team is now moving forward with a lineup spearheaded by Slovenian superstar Luka Doncic.<\/p>\n
The sale still requires approval from the NBA\u2019s board of governors.<\/p>\n
Jeanie Buss had continued to serve as the Lakers\u2019 governor after the club was sold to Walter in a deal that further expanded the sports portfolio of his TWG Global holding company.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s sports holdings include Major League Baseball\u2019s Los Angeles Dodgers and a stake in English Premier League club Chelsea.<\/p>\n
TWG also owns the Billie Jean King Cup tennis tournament and the Cadillac Formula One team.<\/p>\n
However, Walter is currently under federal investigation for possible tax fraud involving his insurance businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cOwning the Los Angeles Lakers has been one of the great honors of my life – an extraordinary investment, but what I will carry with me is the community, the fans, and a city that treats this team as family,\u201d Walter said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am grateful to Jeanie Buss, the Buss family, the players, and the staff for welcoming me into this chapter. The Lakers belong to Los Angeles, and I have every confidence the best is still ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walter\u2019s acquisition of the Lakers had marked the end of an era in the NBA, whose modern popularity owes much to the franchise\u2019s 1980s heyday.<\/p>\n
The Lakers were bought in 1979 by charismatic tycoon Jerry Buss, who quickly helped turn the team into a sporting powerhouse as well as a globally recognised brand.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walter\u2019s purchase, reported in June last year, ended the Buss family\u2019s 46-year reign over the NBA giants. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[279300,46794,5195,682,8613,3468,2398,12484,2082,2740,1861,279301,5933,38862,262583,52041,97244,3025,149346,111,139,69,15267,3235,213,14907,4412,61,1865,279302,59054],"class_list":["post-567199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-213b","tag-angeles","tag-be","tag-being","tag-billion","tag-deal","tag-disney","tag-espn","tag-for","tag-former","tag-history","tag-iger","tag-investor","tag-joshua","tag-kushner","tag-lakers","tag-los","tag-most","tag-nbas","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-reported","tag-sold","tag-sports","tag-successful","tag-teams","tag-to","tag-today","tag-us125","tag-valued"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}