{"id":2100899,"date":"2026-08-19T11:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2100899"},"modified":"2026-08-19T11:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:55:08","slug":"what-were-hearing-about-the-buss-family-battle-and-jeanies-lakers-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2100899","title":{"rendered":"What we\u2019re hearing about the Buss family battle and Jeanie\u2019s Lakers future"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If Mark Walter\u2019s sale of the Los Angeles Lakers was the big surprise of this summer, what followed early this week was perhaps a little more predictable.<\/p>\n

The fight within the Buss family \u2014 specifically between current Lakers governor Jeanie Buss and her five siblings, who voted to sell the family\u2019s shares in the team \u2014 is just beginning. And with it comes a lot of posturing and planning for a fight that will determine how things are run inside basketball\u2019s longest-running soap opera.<\/p>\n

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The drama might not stretch to the Lakers\u2019 latest sale<\/a> \u2014\u00a0the sale from Walter to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner seems like it\u2019s still on track.<\/p>\n

A source with knowledge of Mark Walter\u2019s thinking told The Athletic<\/em> that the current Lakers owner didn\u2019t believe the latest Buss family disagreement would threaten his deal with Iger and Kushner, which values the Lakers at a record $12.5 billion. Two other league and team sources also said they don\u2019t expect the conflict to impact the transaction that will push the Lakers into their next chapter. In that sense, who the Lakers\u2019 majority owner will be when the 2026-27 season begins isn\u2019t the pressing question at hand.<\/p>\n

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What You Should Read Next<\/div>\n
\n \"The<\/p>\n
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\n The Lakers sale and a federal probe put Mark Walter in a spotlight he never sought\n <\/div>\n
\n The Los Angeles Dodgers owner finds himself under scrutiny amid an investigation into one of his other companies.\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

The Athletic<\/em> spoke with multiple league and team sources with knowledge of the situation for this story. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters surrounding the ongoing ownership and family dispute, which could result in litigation.<\/p>\n

Will Jeanie Buss remain the Lakers\u2019 most powerful executive as team governor, or will she and her siblings sever ties from the organization her father purchased 47 years and 11 championships ago amid a bitter dispute?<\/p>\n

That answer won\u2019t be delivered quietly.<\/p>\n

It started with the Buss Family Trust casting five votes to sell its shares<\/a>. Jeanie Buss\u2019 attorney, Adam Streisand, countered with a sternly worded letter asserting her control and laying out a legal strategy to deem the vote void<\/a>. Then, on Tuesday, Johnny, Jim, Janie, Joey and Jesse issued a joint statement expressing their unity and making it clear that they still intend to sell the family\u2019s shares<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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What comes next may not be clear for some time, particularly if this ultimately goes to court.<\/p>\n

If Jeanie\u2019s siblings get their way, the trust\u2019s vote will eventually be deemed valid and Jeanie would be out as team governor as a result (the NBA requires team governors to own at least 15 percent of the franchise). Sources familiar with the siblings\u2019 position said they believe the family trust clearly gives them the ability to make decisions by majority vote and that their actions are consistent with previous rulings.<\/p>\n

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Jeanie and her legal team also believe strongly in their position, with a 2017 court order from the Los Angeles Superior Court cited as the foundation of their stance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat trumps everything,\u201d as one league source close to the situation put it.<\/p>\n

That order was the determining factor in a conflict between Jeanie and her two older brothers, Johnny and Jim, at the time. In the wake of Jeanie firing Jim from the team\u2019s front office en route to hiring Magic Johnson and current president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka, it effectively ended Johnny and Jim\u2019s attempts to have Jeanie removed as governor through the team\u2019s board-election process.<\/p>\n

Per the order, the family\u2019s shares can\u2019t be sold without the approval of \u201ccurrent co-trustees, i.e., Jeanie, Janie and Joey Buss.\u201d<\/p>\n

This passage, in particular, is seen by Jeanie\u2019s side as the primary reason the vote wasn\u2019t valid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Co-trustees of the Trust are hereby instructed to take all actions reasonably available to them, including voting the Trust\u2019s shares, to ensure that (Jeanie Buss) is elected as the Controlling Owner of the Lakers on an annual basis during (Jeanie Buss\u2019) lifetime absent a further order of this Court modifying the Trust based upon proof of circumstances justifying the modification under applicable law.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fair to wonder how Iger and Kushner see this situation, with some wondering whether they\u2019d want to choose a different governor simply because of the messiness of it all. But Walter\u2019s choice to have Jeanie serve as governor for the next four years is known to be part of the contractual agreement from the sale 14 months ago, and a league source close to the situation indicated\u00a0that it is now considered part of the deal with Iger and Kushner. In essence, if that proves to be the case, Iger and Kushner would be assuming Walter\u2019s ownership role and the governor that comes with it.<\/p>\n

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What You Should Read Next<\/div>\n
\n \"What<\/p>\n
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\n What we know so far about Lakers\u2019 surprising sale to Joshua Kushner, Bob Iger\n <\/div>\n
\n The Lakers are being sold again. Why is Mark Walter selling, who are the new owners and what comes next?\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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What\u2019s more, Iger has offered support for this stance both publicly and privately. Then again, as he hinted during that recent interview with The California Post \u201cif things change, they\u2019ll change.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That part is true, but it appears to be more of a legal question than an Iger-Kushner one. Jeanie, meanwhile, clearly has no intention of selling her shares before the rest of her governorship is up.<\/p>\n

Could there be a way for the rest of the siblings to sell and Jeanie to remain as governor? That would require her finding a way to still own at least 15 percent of the shares, but it is possible. Per a league source, Jeanie would be open to exploring that scenario.<\/p>\n

Then again, the level of acrimony here can\u2019t help when it comes to a possible negotiation. It\u2019s worth remembering, too, that Joey and Jesse Buss were fired from their front-office positions by Jeanie just nine months ago, and the temperature has only risen since then.<\/p>\n

The Lakers have shown they\u2019re capable of pulling off a shocker, from trading for Luka Don\u010di\u0107 to being sold twice in the last 14 months. A peaceful ending to this Buss battle would be the biggest stunner of them all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Mark Walter\u2019s sale of the Los Angeles Lakers was the big surprise of this summer, what followed early this week was perhaps a little more predictable. The fight within the Buss family \u2014 specifically between current Lakers governor Jeanie Buss and her five siblings, who voted to sell the family\u2019s shares in the team […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-2100899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2100899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2100899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2100899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2100899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}