Jeanie Buss just told her five siblings their vote to sell the last slice of the Los Angeles Lakers is void, and I am standing with her.
The Buss family has held a piece of this franchise since Jerry Buss bought it in 1979 for $67.5 million. Forty-seven years. Eleven championships. The most wins in the NBA over that span. And now five of the six kids want to cash out the remaining 17.8 percent to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner at a $12.5 billion valuation and stroll off like this was ever just another line item on a trust document.
I have watched this league long enough to know the difference between a business decision and a surrender. This is a surrender.
Five Votes Do Not Override a Court Order
Adam Streisand, Jeanie’s lawyer, put the law on paper. No sale of that 17.8 percent can be effectuated without approval by the current co-trustees: Jeanie, Janie, and Joey Buss. Those co-trustees are bound by a 2017 Los Angeles Superior Court order to vote the shares so the minimum 15 percent ownership stays intact and Jeanie remains Controlling Owner. Streisand called any contrary move a breach of trust, a breach of fiduciary duty, and contempt of court. The vote, he wrote, “would be and is void.”
The five siblings answered with unity theater. “Johnny, Jimmy, Janie, Joey and Jesse have made the decision to sell the family’s remaining stake, and we remain united in that decision,” they said. “We intend to move forward thoughtfully, respectfully and through the appropriate process.”
Thoughtfully. An emergency meeting gets called to dissolve the trust and lock shares for four years while Mark Walter is already flipping the majority stake he bought at a $10 billion valuation. No one mentions the pending sale in that room. Siblings get spooked. The tag-along clause lights up. Suddenly it is time, in the family’s own words, “to move on and exit gracefully while we still can.”
Gracefully. As if Jerry Buss built Showtime so his children could ride a private-equity exit ramp.
This Franchise Was Never Their Liquidity Event
I said for years that control of the Lakers was the only thing standing between this organization and becoming another polished corporate asset. When Jeanie fired Jim Buss as head of basketball operations in 2017, he and Johnny tried to strip her board seat. That fight was about the same question staring at us now. Who protects the brand. Who understands that purple and gold is not a ticker symbol you liquidate because the number got big enough.
Bob Iger knows entertainment empires. Josh Kushner knows capital. Neither of them grew up inside the Forum when Magic and Kareem were rewriting the league. Jeanie did. She stayed governor when Walter took control. She was supposed to stay through at least 2030. Selling the 17.8 percent drops her under the NBA’s 15 percent floor for a controlling owner. Game over for the Buss name on the letterhead.
The family statement insisted they love the Lakers and Laker fans and will continue to support Los Angeles. That is the language people use when the check is already clearing and the parking pass is about to expire.
Let me tell you something about Jeanie Buss. I have watched this woman run a franchise while half her own bloodline treated ownership like a family quarrel with better lawyers. She is not perfect. Nobody who has sat in that chair is. But she is the last person in that trust who still acts like legacy is measured in banners, not tag-along clauses.
Walter flipped this team for roughly $2.5 billion in profit in under a year while facing a federal fraud investigation into companies tied to him. The siblings saw the number, saw the clause, and ran for the exit. Jeanie saw the same number and remembered who paid $67.5 million in 1979 so they could even have this argument.
History Will Not Call This Graceful
THE VOTE IS VOID IF THAT COURT ORDER STILL MEANS ANYTHING. THE 15 PERCENT FLOOR IS NOT A SUGGESTION. AND THE BUSS NAME DOES NOT GET ERASED FROM THE LAKERS BECAUSE FIVE PEOPLE GOT IMPATIENT WITH A TRUST DOCUMENT.
I am not asking the NBA Board of Governors to pick a favorite sibling. I am telling you that if this sale clears over Jeanie’s objection, the league will have rubber-stamped the end of the most successful ownership run in modern NBA history for a cleaner cap table. That is not progress. That is negligence dressed up as an exit strategy.
Forty-seven years. Eleven banners. One woman left holding the line.
I am with Jeanie. The rest of them can take the money. History will remember who stayed.
