After months of searching, the Lakers have finally secured their second assistant general manager under Rob Pelinka.
The Lakers are hiring Heat vice president of player personnel Eric Amsler as an assistant general manager.
He’s also the general manager of the Sioux Falls Skyforce, the Heat’s G League affiliate.
Amsler is the second assistant general manager hire of the offseason after Pelinka, the Lakers president of basketball operations and general manager, said to start the offseason that the front office was being expanded.
The Lakers have been interested in Amsler since at least late May according to HoopsHype.
The Lakers hired Rohan Ramadas as an assistant general manager in May after Ramadas previously worked as a vice president of strategy and operations for the Pelicans.
Amsler will focus on the “player draft and evaluation processes”, which will include pro scouting, draft scouting and player development, while Ramadas’ focus is on the “strategy side”, which entails cap, analytics and data.
“A lot of the infrastructure is being built,” Pelinka said in May. “We will continue to staff out with assistant general manager positions. There’s a couple of those that we’re currently interviewing for and have done an extensive dive in that process. Those will be two key pillars that we’ll add for this offseason.”
Amsler spent 22 years in the Heat organization, starting as an intern in 2004-05 before working his way up to various other roles: scouting and information coordinator (2005-07); scouting and player personnel coordinator (2007-14); director of scouting operations (2015-18); director of scouting/assistant director of player personnel/assistant general manager of the Sioux Falls Skyforce (2018-19) and director of player personnel/general manager of the Skyforce (2019-23) before being promoted to his most recent role with the Heat.
He’s the Lakers’ first major hire since Mark Walter agreed to sell the majority ownership of the Lakers to businessman Josh Kushner and ex-Disney executive Bob Iger at the historic valuation of $12.5 billion.
Kushner also has ties to the Heat, being a minority owner of the franchise since 2024. He’ll need to divest that ownership stake before becoming the Lakers newest owner.
