Five of Jerry Buss’s kids just voted to cash the last 17.8 percent of the Lakers at a $12.5 billion valuation, and Jeanie is the only one still treating the family name like a governing document.
I know what you’re loading in the replies. She’s the governor. She’s the one who steadied the franchise after Jerry died in 2013. She sat courtside through the 2020 bubble title. All true. She also already sold controlling interest to Mark Walter at $10 billion, then cut her brothers and sister out of their Lakers jobs once the deal closed. Now the same five want to ride the tag-along into the Bob Iger and Josh Kushner purchase, and suddenly it’s a crisis of legacy.
Please.
The five siblings put it in writing Tuesday. “Johnny, Jimmy, Janie, Joey and Jesse have made the decision to sell the family’s remaining stake, and we remain united in that decision. We intend to move forward thoughtfully, respectfully and through the appropriate process.” United. Not conflicted. Not torn. United. That is five adults who already took their half-billion-after-tax checks from the Walter sale looking at another roughly $2.225 billion on the table and choosing the exit over another decade of sibling board meetings.
The Dynasty Already Sold Once
Jeanie’s lawyer, Adam Streisand, fired back that any vote is “void ab initio” and that “no sale of the JAB Trust’s 17.8% ownership interest in the Los Angeles Lakers, Inc. can be effectuated without approval by the current co-trustees, i.e., Jeanie, Janie and Joey Buss.” He is hanging the entire argument on a 2017 court order and the claim that the co-trustees must protect her 15 percent floor so she can stay Controlling Owner.
I get the legal posture. I also get the optics. Jeanie had a deal with Walter to remain governor through 2030. If this 17.8 percent closes, she drops under the NBA’s 15 percent ownership minimum and the title goes with it. That is the real fight. Not purple and gold poetry. A job description and the last lever of power inside a franchise she already monetized.
The five even tried the soft landing. “The Los Angeles Lakers have never been just a basketball team. They have been one of the greatest privileges of our lives.” Then they pivoted straight to Iger and Kushner: “We have tremendous respect for Bob Iger and Josh Kushner and believe they understand what the Lakers represent to Los Angeles and our incredibly loyal fan base. We are confident they will honor everything this franchise stands for while building upon the foundation our father created.”
That is not a family clinging to the building. That is a family handing the keys to a former Disney CEO and a Thrive Capital founder and walking out with generational money. Jerry bought the whole package in 1979 for $67.5 million. Eleven championships later, the kids are pricing the leftover stake at more than thirty times the original purchase price of the entire operation. The foundation got paid.
Governor Energy Without the Shares
Skip the corporate media sermon about “what Jerry would have wanted.” Jerry built a showtime empire and a trust structure that required majority sibling votes for a reason. Four of six is the bar. They cleared it. Jeanie abstained or voted no, depending on which source you trust, and then sent the demand letter insisting everyone publicly affirm her as Controlling Owner and freeze the vote. That is not stewardship. That is a veto dressed up as fiduciary duty.
The Lakers just got stamped at $12.5 billion. The NBA is not a family scrapbook anymore. It is a liquidity event with better lighting. Pretending the Buss name still runs the front office after Walter took 65 percent and Iger-Kushner are set to push toward 83 percent is fan fiction. The tag-along exists because somebody in that first deal already saw this movie ending.
If the sale sticks, Jeanie loses the governor chair. Iger has floated honoring the prior arrangement, with the usual corporate caveats when “circumstances change.” Circumstances are changing in real time, in court filings, on Shams’s phone. The siblings who got canned from their scouting and South Bay and front-office roles last fall are not required to keep funding their sister’s title for free.
Seventeen Point Eight Percent of a Ghost
This is the part the glazing class will skip. The Lakers stopped being a Buss family business the day the majority closed to Walter. Everything after is residual. Jeanie can litigate the trust language and she might even slow the 17.8 percent. She cannot reverse the valuation curve or the fact that five of six co-beneficiaries want out. The NBA Board of Governors meets mid-September on the bigger Walter-to-Iger deal. That one is rolling whether Jeanie likes the seating chart or not.
Jerry’s kids already cashed the empire. One of them wants to keep the nameplate. The other five just told her the nameplate is for sale too.
