A longtime member of the Miami Heat’s front office is heading west.
Eric Amsler, who served as Miami’s vice president of player personnel, has reportedly accepted the assistant general manager job with the Los Angeles Lakers, according to ESPN insider Shams Charania. The move ends a 22-season run with the Heat for the 49-year-old, who climbed through the organization one step at a time after first joining as an intern.
Amsler’s path in Miami was built across nearly every corner of the scouting and personnel operation. He worked as the Scouting and Information Coordinator from 2005 to 2007, then as Scouting and Player Personnel Coordinator from 2007 to 2014.
From there he became Director of Scouting Operations from 2015 to 2018, then took on multiple roles with the Sioux Falls Skyforce from 2018 to 2019 before serving as Director of Player Personnel/General Manager from 2019 to 2023. After that, he was named vice president.
He spent those years in the same front office ecosystem as Andy Elisburg and Team President Pat Riley, and the source material points to that run as proof that Amsler understands how to build a roster that can contend for championships. The Skyforce also posted four winning seasons under that structure, including a Western Conference Finals appearance in the 2024 G League playoffs.
Now he walks into a very different situation in Los Angeles. The Lakers are in the middle of a power struggle, with Mark Walter - who bought a majority stake in the franchise in late October last year - having surprisingly agreed to sell his entire share to Josh Kushner and former Disney CEO Bob Iger. Walter is also under federal investigation regarding billions in undisclosed loans.
The ownership situation is only part of the mess. Five of the six Buss family siblings, including Joey and Jesse, voted unanimously, 5-0, to sell the family’s remaining stakes in the Lakers, while governor Jeanie Buss is protesting the decision to sell ownership.
That backdrop leaves Team President Rob Pelinka’s future in question, and it makes Amsler’s arrival especially notable. The Lakers are adding scouting help at a time when they badly need it, and they’re hoping to benefit from the kind of eye Miami has used to uncover and develop overlooked talent.
That has long been one of the Heat’s defining strengths. Duncan Robinson, Max Strus, Gabe Vincent, Caleb Martin, and Haywood Highsmith are the examples cited here - players who weren’t with Miami at the time of the article but turned into extended-career NBA contributors after developing through the Heat’s system.
The Lakers will be looking for that same kind of hidden value more often, and Amsler brings the Miami blueprint with him. He spent more than two decades doing the behind-the-scenes work in South Florida. Now he’ll do it with a brighter spotlight in Los Angeles.
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