The Lakers are adding a familiar name from one of the NBA’s most stable front offices.
Eric Amsler, who has spent 22 years with the Miami Heat organization, is being hired by Los Angeles as an assistant general manager focused more on scouting. The move gives the Lakers another experienced evaluator as they continue to reorganize and grow their basketball operations, adding analytics staff and much-needed personnel on the scouting side.
It also takes a long-time Heat executive out of Miami’s building.
Amsler was most recently the Heat’s vice president of player personnel, a role that put him in the middle of the organization’s pro and draft evaluation work. Now he is headed to Los Angeles, where he will serve as the second assistant general manager under Rob Pelinka. Both Amsler and the Lakers’ other assistant GM, Ramadas, will report to Pelinka, who remains the head of Lakers basketball operations.
That reporting line matters because it shows where the Lakers are placing this hire: not as a ceremonial addition, but as part of the front office structure around scouting and roster evaluation. Amsler’s new job is expected to center on pro and draft scouting and player development.
For Miami, the loss is more than just a name leaving the staff list. Amsler’s 22-year run with the Heat made him one of the organization’s long-tenured executives, and the report framing the move as a “major blow” reflects how much institutional knowledge walks out the door when a front-office veteran departs. The Heat now have to replace someone who had spent more than two decades inside the organization and had risen to vice president of player personnel.
The timing adds another layer for the Lakers. This is their first reported move since Mark Walter agreed in principle to sell the team to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger. At the same time, the Buss family’s internal dispute over the franchise sale is heading to court, with five of the six Buss siblings voting to exercise a tag-along clause and sell their remaining 17.8% stake to the Kushner/Iger group.
So the Amsler hire lands in the middle of a transition period: a front office being expanded, a sale process moving forward, and ownership uncertainty still hanging over the franchise. Even so, the Lakers are moving ahead with the kind of personnel addition that can reshape how a team evaluates players, especially on the scouting side.
For Miami, the transaction is simpler and starker. One of its longest-serving executives is gone.