Adam Silver: NBA found no red flags before Mark Walter bought Lakers

The NBA thoroughly vetted Mark Walter before approving his purchase of the Lakers. According to commissioner Adam Silver, the league found nothing that caused concern.

Fourteen months later, Walter is preparing to sell the franchise for $12.5 billion while reportedly under federal investigation.

“We spoke to governmental agencies,” Silver said following the NBA’s Board of Governors meetings. “We spoke to, in the case of Mark Walter, a heavily regulated insurance agency. We spoke to other leagues in which he has investments. We found no red flags.”

Silver emphasized that the current issues involving Walter remain allegations and said the NBA itself was not investigating him.

Perhaps more surprising, Silver said he had no advance indication that Walter intended to unload the Lakers so quickly.

“I had no prior notion that he was intending to sell his team until I heard from the buyers that they had a handshake with him,” Silver said.

Those buyers are Josh Kushner and former Disney CEO Bob Iger, who agreed to purchase the Lakers at a record $12.5 billion valuation. Walter bought control of the franchise from the Buss family for approximately $10 billion in 2025.

The ownership transition remains complicated. The Buss family is also attempting to sell its remaining 17.8 percent stake, a move Jeanie Buss is fighting in court. Losing that interest would prevent her from satisfying the NBA’s 15-percent ownership requirement to remain team governor.

So the Lakers could soon have their third controlling ownership arrangement in roughly two years.

The NBA says it found no red flags with Walter. After a remarkably quick resale, an unexpected $2.5 billion increase in value and an ongoing federal investigation, it now has at least one enormous yellow one.