Buss Family Turmoil

Nothing else really matters. They had a decent team 6 years ago and hired two coaches that were horrible fits. They then decided to play a crazy cap space game...while blowing a massive chunk of that cap on a geriatric Kobe coming off achilles surgery. Then they end things by signing Deng and Mozgov...preventing us from having two slots this offseason.

Jeannie has made a lot of mistakes, but in the end, Jeannie had nothing to do with the basketball decisions, and the basketball decisions are why we have averaged 22 wins over the past 3 seasons and appear to be on track to hit that average this season.

 

To be fair however, Dr. Buss did stipulate that he wanted his son Jim in charge of basketball. Jeannie let him do that, she asked specifically for a timeline on when he would bring us back to contention. He told her and all of the public that it was three to four years. She respected her father's wishes and Jim's timeline and it was Jim and Mitch who kept her out of all basketball decision making. This was the final straw and while I thought she should have given him until the end of the year after the great start, they obviously fell apart and the move needed to be done earlier. Firing your brother couldn't be an easy decision and it took guts.

From now on all of the success or failure blame falls on Jeannie and her team. Let's see what they can do. Personally I think they can do a whole lot better.

 

Don't shoot me, but I left out A LOT of the article. I was working from my phone and.... nevermind. it's in there now.

Here is what I left out. Thanks @TIME for pointing this out.



"He'd tell me his vision was for Jeanie and I to run it. She knew that too," says Magic Johnson. "[But] He couldn't put me in that position. I told him that. I was upfront with him. I'd say, 'You have four boys -- there's no way that's going to go over well.'"

Johnson had always been something of an adopted member of the Buss family -- Dr. Buss even gave him 5 percent of the team upon his retirement.

"He would not have done that if he didn't want Earvin to be a part of it," Janie says. "My dad always looked at Earvin as another son. He had the utmost respect. He made the Lakers franchise; he made us famous. We couldn't have done it without him."

A few days before his death in February 2013, Dr. Buss summoned Johnson to visit him in the hospital. Johnson had sold his Lakers shares and become part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012, seemingly moving on from the dream of a role with the Lakers.

"Jeanie had called and told me to come up, that he wanted to see me," Johnson says. "And he said it again. He said, 'I always thought you guys would run it.' We were both sitting there crying about it because he knew I was right. ... Back then, it would have been a lot of resentment. It would have been difficult."

Johnson was absolutely right. Even with the team's basketball operations in his hands, Jim Buss had a tremendous amount of resentment for Johnson. At the same time that Dr. Buss was telling Johnson he wanted him to run the Lakers along with Jeanie Buss, Jim Buss says his father told him, "I believe you can do it."

Jim Buss did not respond to requests for comment for this story, but in September 2013 he told ESPN, "If he didn't think I was capable of doing this, I guarantee he wouldn't have put me here. He would have arranged something else. My dad trusted me."

Dr. Buss had a close relationship with all of his sons. He and Jim bonded over their love of numbers, opera, partying and collecting rare stamps and coins. In a 2014 interview with ESPN, Jim Buss said he watched nearly every Lakers game with his father while he was in the hospital.

Of course, Buss also had a very close relationship with Johnson. Johnson was just 19 when the Lakers drafted him No. 1 overall in 1979. He was a wide-eyed showman from East Lansing, Michigan, who gravitated toward Dr. Buss as a father figure.

He would drive to Buss' Pickfair mansion on off nights to play pool, Johnson says, or attend the frequent parties. On Saturdays, he'd wake up early to work out, then head over to the Buss house to ride with the family to USC football games.

Between life at home and the Forum, Jeanie Buss and Johnson saw each other nearly every day. They shared the unique bond of learning from, living with and loving Dr. Buss within his hedonistic lifestyle.

"Earvin and I speak the same language," Jeanie Buss says. "Because we were raised by the same man."

AS CLOSE AS Jeanie Buss is to Magic, her relationships with her elder brothers have been strained for years. Johnny Buss' notice, on its face, had been to schedule the Lakers annual shareholders meeting -- but also to propose what looked like a classic boardroom takeover. Four names had been submitted for the Lakers' five-person board of directors: Johnny Buss, Jim Buss, Dan Beckerman (the CEO of Anschutz Entertainment Group, whose chairman, Phil Anschutz, controls two seats on the board) and a property investor named Romie Chaudhari.

Not included: Jeanie Buss, or the team's alternate governor, younger brother Joey Buss. Johnny Buss was proposing two new board members -- Jim Buss and Chaudhari -- to replace Jeanie and Joey.

For Jeanie Buss, this was about more than just a board of directors seat. According to the team's corporate bylaws, the controlling owner must be elected from the board of directors. So if she was not a director, theoretically, she couldn't be re-elected as controlling owner -- even though Dr. Buss' trust clearly named her his successor in that role.

The question hanging over everything now is what Jim and Johnny Buss really want: to be restored to power? To be bought out? Something else entirely?

"This is something huge and it's not going to go away. They're trying to bust the trust so they can sell their [interests]," younger sister Janie Buss says. "And if they sell, that'll leave the rest of us in a minority."

Janie says she thinks that Johnny and Jim each have different motivations but that their endgame is the same: to cash out.

"Growing up, Johnny was the kid who brought the ball to the park and when things didn't go his way, he took the ball and ran," Janie says. "I don't want to call him a poor sport, because a poor sport would be someone who lost a game and kicked the referee. No, Johnny took the ball away so nobody could play.

"Jimmy will bring the ball, but he'll be like, 'Everyone gets to play, but you have to put a dollar in to play. He tries to figure out things mathematically, how to get the best advantage."

Robert Sacks, a lawyer representing Johnny and Jim Buss, contends that Johnny's letter was simply a call for the annual shareholders meeting, which was three months overdue (but which the Lakers have conducted over email, not in person, for years). He pointed to a document signed by both brothers on March 1, voting to re-elect Jeanie as the Lakers controlling owner. However, when pressed on whether they'd support her as a director, Sacks declined to comment.

Jeanie Buss' lawyer, Adam Streisand, says that until the brothers commit to supporting her as both a director and controlling owner, they are in breach of their obligation as co-trustees with a fiduciary responsibility to keep her in that role. Without that commitment, Streisand is continuing with a lawsuit against the elder brothers, which will be heard in L.A. Superior Court beginning May 15.

Beckerman, who serves as Anschutz's representative on the Lakers board, issued a statement to ESPN on Monday indicating he had no knowledge of the brother's intentions.

Said Beckerman, "We fully support Jeanie Buss as the controlling owner of the Lakers. She has demonstrated her commitment to the franchise and we have complete faith and confidence in her continued leadership."

The rationale for including Chaudhari's name as a proposed director was one of the biggest question marks in the proposed boardroom. Chaudhari, who was a part of an American consortium that bought a majority share of the English Premier League club Swansea City last year, issued a statement to ESPN through his lawyer, Adam Bass:

"Mr. Chaudhari and Jim Buss met in connection with a non-basketball business transaction. He never agreed to be included as a candidate for the Lakers board of directors. In addition, Mr. Chaudhari made it very clear that he is not, nor has he ever been, interested in participating in a family dispute."

According to a source with direct knowledge of the situation, Jim Buss asked Chaudhari if he had an interest in serving on the Lakers board on Feb. 24, the same day Johnny Buss sent the notice to Jeanie Buss. Chaudhari told Jim Buss that he respectfully declined. Chaudhari was then surprised to find out his name had been included as a proposed director in the letter, according to the source, when it became a matter of public record in Jeanie Buss' court filings on March 3. Chaudhari is still engaged in several real estate business deals with Jim Buss, according to the source.

Further complicating matters is the inclusion in the notice of a $30,000 a month incentive to the non-shareholder directors (Chaudhari and Beckerman), $10,000 a month to shareholder board members (Jim and Johnny), and a tidy $25 million one-time disbursement to be split amongst the shareholders.

Janie Buss said she thinks her older brothers are looking to cash out. Together, the six Buss children inherited 66 percent of the Lakers via four trusts established by Dr. Buss and his first wife, JoAnn. According to court documents, the trusts state that four of the six Buss children would have to agree to a sale of their interests in the Lakers. That's further complicated, because a percentage of the Buss family shares are in JoAnn's name and cannot be sold until her death.

"The way the trust is set up, it's last man standing," Janie says. "If I die tomorrow, my kids benefit a little bit but they don't get everything I'm entitled to. As we all go down, it's all going to end up in Joey and Jesse's hands because they're the youngest."

She says she understands why Johnny, age 60 with two young kids, would want to cash out and leave more to his own children. She's had the same thought. But ultimately, she wants to follow her father's wishes because, "I am living life better than I ever thought I could live, and it's all because of my dad's hard work."

EVEN BEFORE this week's machinations, Jeanie and Jim Buss' relationship has never been particularly close. So it was a hopeful sign when, in November 2012, Jim Buss stopped by his sister's office at the Lakers headquarters and asked if she thought her longtime boyfriend, Phil Jackson, would come out of retirement again to coach the team he led to five NBA championships between 2000 and 2010.

That might not seem like a big event. But in the world of this decades-long familial power struggle, it was huge. Jim and Jeanie communicated mostly via text message, so setting foot into his sister's office was an impressive gesture by Jim. So too was the request for her help in a basketball matter.

Jeanie Buss gave her brother Jackson's cell phone number and told him to call Jackson directly, that it would mean more coming from him.

A few days later, Jim Buss and Kupchak came over to Jackson's house in Marina Del Rey to discuss the job. Jackson ended the meeting feeling that the job was his to accept or turn down and that he had a few days to do so.

In Jackson's mind, taking the job would be a favor to his fiancée and her family as the patriarch of the family lay dying. But he needed time to check with his doctor about whether it was acceptable to delay treatment for recently diagnosed prostate cancer by a few months to coach the Lakers.

In the meantime, Buss and Kupchak continued to interview candidates, including Mike D'Antoni by phone.

Then, on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012, something happened that forever altered the course of the family and their relationships.

At approximately the same time that Jackson decided to agree to take the job -- and told his agent to book a red-eye flight from Chicago to Los Angeles to do the deal Monday morning -- Kupchak and Buss began negotiating a contract with D'Antoni and his agent.

Worse, it was Kupchak -- not either of the Buss men -- who called Jackson a little before midnight to inform him that the Lakers had chosen to hire D'Antoni.

Jackson and Jeanie Buss were stunned. They were also hurt and furious. Jackson's agents issued a scathing statement the following day, deriding the Lakers for how they had disrespected Jackson.

Jeanie was heartbroken. It felt cruel to involve her in this, to ask for her help in bringing Jackson back, then dash those hopes without explanation. Was this was a power play by her brother, meant to injure and silence her? Or just callousness? She couldn't decide which was worse.

There was another, unintended side effect: It also meant that Jeanie would soon have to choose between the Lakers and the man she loved, as Jackson would now have to leave town to find another job.

DESPITE THE FALLOUT over D'Antoni's hire, the Buss siblings seemed to make an effort to work together after their father's death in February 2013. Kupchak and Jim Buss met with Jeanie Buss semi-regularly to keep her informed on their strategic thinking about the basketball operations of the franchise. Jeanie Buss and Jackson tried to help in the effort to retain

Dwight Howard as a free agent. The six Buss siblings met every 3-4 months for about a year and a half. Jeanie Buss and Linda Rambis even developed a relationship with D'Antoni's wife, Laurel, to help ease the awkwardness

 

Very accurate IMO: "Janie says she thinks that Johnny and Jim each have different motivations but that their endgame is the same: to cash out."

If that happens, the Buss family is no longer majority owner, for the first time in nearly 40 years.

 

The way I'm reading it, I'm not sure if it's possible under the Buss trust.

The kids are not allowed to give up their majority hold unless all six kids vote for it. Since those two are the only ones who want out, the kids are unlikely to approve the motion to break the trust. Even then, I'd imagine Jeanie would find a way to buy those shares so that the Buss family still held a majority.

 

That's what I interpret as well. 4 of 6 have to agree to sell. Only two want out.

 

I recommend you read it. Great article, even if it's extremely long.

 

But how can they buy them out when the franchise is worth $3 - 5 Billion. No way Jeannie or any of them have that kinda dough. They'd each expect something in the $750 million range for their shares.

Annnd... If I were them, I'd want out too. They are getting paid about $10 million per year. A lot of money, but not $750 million.

 

Yeah. The Buss kids have most of their money wrapped up in the team. They are not uber-rich like Cuban or some of the other owners. The Lakers were actually their family's source of income. The four of them would have to come up with 200 million each to buy the two knuckleheads out. Seems like Jimbo and Johnny will have to slum it for the rest of their lives as they try to figure out how to scrape by on 10 million a year.