Power Struggle for Lakers Ownership Emerging Among Buss Family

[madmaxmedia]

Civilized pretty much ended with Jim and Johnny tried to kick Jeannie of the board of directors. That being said, I don't think there necessarily has to be a 'bad guy', it seems more like a coming together of multiple bad factors.

Magic comes off as bad guy to me, though I realize that'll be an incredibly unpopular opinion.

I've said a few times that Magic is a whole other bag of issues for this team. He wasn't a positive force in any way when he was around the teams in the mid 90's. There is a reason he's been on the outside for a long time.

That said, he's a Laker legend for what he did on the court so in this dire time in Laker history he's viewed as the savior presently it seems. Time will tell.

Those are all excellent points/considerations.

I only hope he has the self-awareness to know what he doesn't know about basketball, and seek whatever counsel is necessary to guide the Lakers going forward. He specifically mentions this in the Ramona article, so we'll see. Outside of his personal character, I've never been particularly blown away by his basketball analysis on TV. A lot of this is actually riding on Rob Pelinka as GM...

I think it's possible that Jeannie misguidedly thought she really could bring Magic in as just an 'advisor' to keep her in the loop on basketball matters, and gain some sense of control or influence over what was going on on the other side. If that's true, then she woefully underestimated how such a move would be perceived not only by Jim and Mitch, but by just about everyone. Magic could have been first to suggest the idea of coming in and 'advising' Jeannie, and at the very least foreseeing the possibility of becoming much more after not long. Whether you grade Magic's character a 1 or a 10, as someone close to Jeannie he has incredible influence on her in the middle of a very challenging time.

Jennifer Lawrence is doing a movie about the rise and fall of Theranos, I'm sure she can play Jeannie and they can do one about the Lakers in 20 years...

[danfantastk32]

I agree, that Magic needs to stay out of this. This isn't his family. He'd be furious if someone talked about his dad's death bed.

I think Magic can be positive for this team.....but he needs to focus on the team, and focus on the future. Don't get involved in any way, shape, form with the family crap. Stop talking bad about them. Work on making the team better.

[MelosSoreWrist]

I mean, I'd just like to point out the only proof we have that Jim and his brother did in fact attempt an 'end run' is Jeannie and her Lawyer saying they did... They deny it.

It seems like they may have tried, but I think with all the other nonsense being leaked right now, you have to take all that with a pretty heavy grain of salt... It sure served Jeannie's agenda for that to come out.

And like other people have said if your sister fires you and you all of a sudden find yourselves as the only family members not employed by the family business... What the hell else should you do? Go fishing?
Jeannie has declared herself Ruler and no longer wants their opinions... So why hang around?

That to me isn't a grudge, that's just good business sense.

I'd also like to point out there's another person that we could count on to not react emotionally to these events... Mitch. He was even more of a Zen master than Phil.

Jim and Johnny called for a shareholders meeting in which they were going to elect new board of directors and neither Jeanie nor Joey Buss were on the list of candidates.

Thats the smoking gun. And Jim's lawyers didnt have an explanation for that. And even those listed as candidates were distancing themselves from Jim and Johnny and the meeting.

[MelosSoreWrist]

I always had the inclination to allow Jimmy and Mitch to work, at least there was a discernable method to the madness. I had always thought Jeanie was the odd one out because everything she did sorta ran counter to what Jimmy and Mitch did.

Now we know why.

Jeannie was kept out of the decision making and by extension Magic was as well.

It's refreshing to see Jeannie wield the axe and install Magic and Pelinka into the front office, and for the time being we have a front office that's all pointing in the same direction.

Like a good set of breasts.

The thing is though, Jeanie hired Magic right before the trade deadline. She was vague about his role. Magic indicated his role was all over the map, and he said he had no idea about the current CBA...
IMO, it was Magic's job to get in the loop. He knew where those guys were. He knew how to get in the room with them. But he waited for Mitch and Jim to get to him... During one of the busiest times of the year for those two guys...
Magic wasn't their boss yet so they had no real obligation to clue him in to every discussion.

So I call BS on all that. I think the plan all along was to fire Jim and Mitch and replace them with Magic... I just think they wanted to see if Jim and Mitch had any fireworks planned for Free Agency... At the same time they were sort of submarine-ing those plans with the hiring of Magic...
I don't believe for a second that Magic was desperately trying to get into contact with Mitch and Jim and they were ducking his calls. He could have just walked into their offices. It's not that complicated.

It seemed like Jim and Mitch ran a tight ship. I dont doubt Jeanie was kept out of the loop most of the time. At times in the past (free agency) it did seem like she wanted to know what was going on. And it makes sense she mightve wanted to be in the loop as another season was falling apart and the new free agent signings being disasters. The Magic hire mightve been her way to get into the know as well as her thinking Magic's opinions might be better than Jim and Mitch's. But the whole initial Magic hire was ambiguous from the hierarchy pov and I dont fault Mitch and Jim for not going to Magic at every move.

[danfantastk32]

Jim and Johnny called for a shareholders meeting in which they were going to elect new board of directors and neither Jeanie nor Joey Buss were on the list of candidates.

Thats the smoking gun. And Jim's lawyers didnt have an explanation for that. And even those listed as candidates were distancing themselves from Jim and Johnny and the meeting.

I liked how in that article, the guy that Jim put on the list issued a statement that essentially said "yo...I have no part in this. Keep me out of your family BS". I had to chuckle.

[Kilroy]

I mean, I'd just like to point out the only proof we have that Jim and his brother did in fact attempt an 'end run' is Jeannie and her Lawyer saying they did... They deny it.

It seems like they may have tried, but I think with all the other nonsense being leaked right now, you have to take all that with a pretty heavy grain of salt... It sure served Jeannie's agenda for that to come out.

And like other people have said if your sister fires you and you all of a sudden find yourselves as the only family members not employed by the family business... What the hell else should you do? Go fishing?
Jeannie has declared herself Ruler and no longer wants their opinions... So why hang around?

That to me isn't a grudge, that's just good business sense.

I'd also like to point out there's another person that we could count on to not react emotionally to these events... Mitch. He was even more of a Zen master than Phil.

Jim and Johnny called for a shareholders meeting in which they were going to elect new board of directors and neither Jeanie nor Joey Buss were on the list of candidates.

Thats the smoking gun. And Jim's lawyers didnt have an explanation for that. And even those listed as candidates were distancing themselves from Jim and Johnny and the meeting.

That information came from Jeannie's lawyers... The buss family trust isn't a public company so there's no reason for them to release information about the proceedings to the press... So unless someone leaked it, we wouldn't have known.
In this case the 'leak' came in the form of Jeannie's lawyers filing an restraining order in public court and listing all these 'facts' in the filing. The burden of proof for a restraining order is pretty low. But it's a good way to get a bunch of stuff in the public record for later. Divorce lawyers do it all the time.

The whole thing may have happened exactly that way, but I think it's safe to question the hell out of it, given the source.

[SlimShady83]

I'm starting to think that this team isn't going to go any where fast, until they get all this stuff sorted - should be interesting to see what happens.

what percentage of the company does Jeanie Own?

[DNP-Old]

I'm starting to think that this team isn't going to go any where fast, until they get all this stuff sorted - should be interesting to see what happens.

what percentage of the company does Jeanie Own?

Eleven.

[Landsberger]

I'm starting to think that this team isn't going to go any where fast, until they get all this stuff sorted - should be interesting to see what happens.

what percentage of the company does Jeanie Own?

She doesn't directly own the Lakers. She's a beneficiary of a trust which owns 66% of the Lakers. She's an equal owner of that trust with the rest of her siblings. If the trust is dissolved she may or may not (depending on the dissolution clauses) get shares directly. Some trusts that own businesses have very onerous dissolution clauses that typically force the beneficiaries to liquidate everything rather than one person being able to buy the others out. Who knows how this one is set up? From the sounds of it the Dr. wanted equal ownership and he entrusted Jeannie to run the trusts interest in the franchise. I'm sure the NBA had significant input into the trusts creation as well.

[dockingsched]

Looks like it's been resolved for at least one more year

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