{"id":335901,"date":"2026-05-28T13:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/335901\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T13:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:20:09","slug":"for-dodgers-getting-to-playoffs-is-not-good-enough-for-mark-walter-for-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/335901\/","title":{"rendered":"For Dodgers, getting to playoffs is not good enough for Mark Walter. For Lakers?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here\u2019s a bit of Dodgers<\/a> trivia for the bandwagon fans in our midst: Who was the manager before Dave Roberts?<\/p>\n

That was 11 years ago<\/a>. He is Don Mattingly, who returns to Dodger Stadium on Friday as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies.<\/p>\n

The Phillies were 9-19 when they fired Rob Thomson and replaced him with Mattingly. They are 20-8 since then, a better record than the Dodgers have posted over the same span.<\/p>\n

In Philadelphia, Mattingly got his chance because the Phillies were losing. In Los Angeles, Mattingly departed amid a run of winning.<\/p>\n

For Mark Walter and what was then a new Dodgers ownership group, that was not enough. As Walter enters his first offseason as the Lakers<\/a>\u2019 controlling owner, it\u2019s worth keeping that in mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a hunger for victory that is the greatest I\u2019ve ever seen, without exaggeration,\u201d former Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti told me.<\/p>\n

In two seasons with Rob Pelinka as president of basketball operations and JJ Redick as coach, the Lakers won division titles both times, failing to get out of the first round of the playoffs one year and failing to get out of the second round of the playoffs the next.<\/p>\n

In 2013 and 2014, with Colletti as GM and Mattingly as manager in the first full seasons of Walter\u2019s ownership, the Dodgers won division titles both times, failing to get out of the first round one year and failing to get out of the second round the other.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers replaced Colletti with Andrew Friedman.<\/p>\n

In 2015, the Dodgers won the division but failed to get out of the first round of the playoffs. Friedman offered Mattingly a short-term extension, and Mattingly opted for a long-term deal to manage the Miami Marlins.<\/p>\n

After Walter and Co. took over the Dodgers, Mattingly told me Wednesday, there was one year he thought he might be fired: 2013, when the Dodgers started 30-42 and fell 9 1\/2 games out of first place in mid-June. The Dodgers then reeled off 42 wins in 50 games and won the division by 11 games.<\/p>\n

He appreciated that Walter, team president Stan Kasten and eventually Friedman did not simply bring in a new manager at their first chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get to evaluate and see,\u201d Mattingly said, \u201cand you have your vision for where you want it to go, and sustain it. That\u2019s the thing they\u2019ve been great at: sustaining it. It\u2019s been year after year. You can\u2019t really doubt what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kasten\u2019s first move was not to fire Colletti, but to ask what ownership could provide for him so that he could do a better job. The owners quickly responded<\/a> by funding the addition of impact players (Adri\u00e1n Gonz\u00e1lez and Hanley Ramirez), extending the contract of a popular home-grown player (Andre Ethier), revitalizing the Dodgers\u2019 Latin American talent pipeline (Yasiel Puig and Julio Ur\u00edas), renovating the clubhouse and, at Mattingly\u2019s suggestion, refreshing the family room.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started to be able to compete with a different mindset, which was invaluable,\u201d Colletti said.<\/p>\n

Similarly, with Friedman and former Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi as consultants, the Lakers have added two positions for assistant general managers, overhauled the scouting staff, created more room at team headquarters by relocating their G League affiliate to the Coachella Valley, and borrowed from the Dodgers\u2019 playbook in modernizing medical and biomechanical facilities.<\/p>\n

This summer could be critical in determining the future of the Lakers, including who runs them. Walter can spend all he wants, as he does with the Dodgers, but the luxury-tax penalties<\/a> in the NBA are more severe than in baseball and could restrict the roster flexibility so coveted by the likes of Friedman and Zaidi. A star-studded roster beyond Luka Doncic \u2014 say, a trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo? \u2014 could require the Lakers to sacrifice the draft picks that also would limit roster flexibility.<\/p>\n

The Lakers will have the resources. Walter will want to see the creativity and the championships \u2014 or, at least, the path to them. Ultimately, he will decide what he did with the Dodgers: Does he have the best people he can get running the team?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see many organizations that win, and then they take a step back,\u201d Colletti said. \u201cThey feel like they have some goodwill in the bank, they don\u2019t have to chase the biggest free agents, and they don\u2019t need to re-invest in the team or the stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my vantage point, all the way up and down that organization and especially at the ownership level, it\u2019s almost like they\u2019ve never won, and they\u2019re hungry to get there. To be there and be unsatisfied \u2014 that quest to be as great as you can be \u2014 is one of the great indicators of the excellent ownership it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, any advice for Pelinka and Redick? Colletti let out a hearty laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo your best,\u201d he said, \u201cand turn it up a notch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s a bit of Dodgers trivia for the bandwagon fans in our midst: Who was the manager before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[10558,138754,138755,426,15930,12411,423,48,52,51,1415,47,50,49,2747,26269,26178,8841,138756,315,72],"class_list":["post-335901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-andrew-friedman","tag-colletti","tag-division-title","tag-dodgers","tag-don-mattingly","tag-first-round","tag-game","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lakers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-manager","tag-mark-walter","tag-ownership","tag-playoff","tag-team-headquarter","tag-time","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}