The first name to surface around the Lakers’ new ownership era is one that will hit Los Angeles fans right in the memory bank: Chris Paul.
Hours after it was reported that Bob Iger and Josh Kushner agreed to buy the Lakers at a record $12.5 billion valuation, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne flagged Paul as a person to watch as the new regime takes shape. She did not say the Lakers are chasing him, and she did not say a role has been discussed. What she did say was much narrower - and still enough to get people talking.
“I don’t know what that means for him, but I expect they’ll be talking,” Shelburne said.
That’s the hard-news center of the story for now. But the reason Paul’s name lands with real force is that this isn’t some random connection pulled from thin air. He already has a relationship with Iger, and not just the casual kind that comes from orbiting the same league.
Iger’s Los Angeles basketball ties go back years. He held Clippers season tickets during the stretch when Paul was leading some of the team’s best clubs, and that’s where the personal connection was built.
Even more telling: the two are already business partners. Iger and his wife, Willow Bay, have been controlling owners of Angel City FC since 2024, and Paul bought a minority stake in the club last year.
So when Shelburne says she expects them to be talking, she’s talking about two people who already do business together.
Paul has also made clear that his post-playing life is about more than just basketball. In an interview with Forbes last year, he said he entered the league at 19 without a business mindset and framed his next chapter around growing his brand and his team. That makes him a natural fit for any ownership group looking for someone with real basketball credibility and a business presence.
And then there’s the part that makes this feel almost scripted in Los Angeles: Paul was supposed to be a Laker once, for about 48 hours in December 2011. The Lakers had agreed to acquire him from the New Orleans Hornets in a three-team deal before the league office, which owned the Hornets at the time, killed it. David Stern’s “basketball reasons” explanation became instant NBA lore.
Paul ended up with the Clippers instead, built Lob City across town and spent six seasons as the best point guard in the building the Lakers shared with him. Fifteen years later, the team that was never allowed to have him is now tied to one of his closest allies in American business.
Paul’s playing career ended earlier this year. He retired on Feb. 13, at age 41, after a 21-season run, announcing the decision on Instagram on the opening day of All-Star Weekend.
The finish was messy. He had signed a one-year deal with the Clippers as a farewell season, but the team was 5-16 when it moved him off the roster on Dec. 3 amid reported friction with head coach Tyronn Lue and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank.
He was then dealt to Toronto at the trade deadline in a move both sides understood as procedural, and the Raptors waived him before he ever reported. Hours later, retirement was official.
The résumé, though, speaks for itself. Paul is a 12-time All-Star, an 11-time All-NBA selection, a nine-time All-Defensive pick, a five-time assists champion and a member of the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team. His 12,552 career assists trail only John Stockton in league history.
“The game of basketball will forever be engrained in the DNA of my life,” Paul wrote.
If this does go anywhere, the most obvious lane would be some kind of front-office or advisory role. Paul spent two decades as one of the league’s most respected on-court organizers, and there’s no record of coaching being part of his plan. There’s also a familiar face already inside the Lakers’ building in JJ Redick, who spent years as Paul’s Clippers teammate during the Lob City era.
On the same “NBA Today” broadcast, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin said Redick got a contract extension after his first season that aligned his deal with president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka’s. That underscores that the new owners are walking into an existing structure, not an empty one.
For now, the important part is simple: there is no reported offer, no reported conversation and no reported role. The sale still has to be approved by the NBA’s Board of Governors before Iger and Kushner formally take control. But there is a real relationship here, a business partnership already in place, a retired star who has said his next act is business, and a franchise that has owed him a strange little apology for 15 years.
That’s enough to keep Chris Paul’s name in the mix.
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