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NBA commissioner Adam Silver, his own gavel shiny and new in hand, dined with Buss in Los Angeles Monday night and gave her a pointed message, according to NBA sources:

The power is hers to use, and those in the league office want and trust her to be more aggressive with it in leading the Los Angeles Lakers.

In the days after the dinner, Buss appeared for rare, extended interviews with the Lakers’ TV and radio partners. The spots were not specifically at Silver’s behest; Buss decided on her own to do them to clarify matters after fiance Phil Jackson’s official departure from the Lakers’ family to run the New York Knicks, who face the Lakers on Tuesday at Staples Center.

Some other interesting tidbits:

Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak has a splendid relationship with Jackson, and every Lakers legend from Kobe Bryant to Magic Johnson would’ve been nodding about this season being a fundamental success no matter how many games the Lakers lost.

Jeanie could’ve installed Jackson above or below Jim—the majority of her siblings actually endorsed Jackson coming aboard, though Jim and older brother Johnny didn’t—and with that less dramatic turn still could’ve absolutely changed the course of Lakers history.

The onus on Jeanie and Jim only increases further when the day comes that their mother and Jerry’s ex-wife, JoAnn, has to pass down her shares in the team. Those shares will go only to her children, the four eldest (Johnny, Jim, Jeanie and Janie), not the two youngest (Joey and Jesse), according to team sources.

Kevin Ding | Bleacher Report

I often see people say that it is in the best interest of the league for the Lakers to be successful. If this is true then it helps justify what people say. I can't see why else the commissioner of the league would want Jeanie to be more involved.

Come on Adam just throw us a top pick in this years draft to give your cash cow a jump start.

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In Jeanie's interview on TWC, she did sort of admit that she had been spending a lot of time with Phil, which meant her job as the "face" of the Lakers was on the back-burner.

IMO, this is a good sign that we might have someone to act as a figurehead to take some of the load off of the FO and buy us time to rebuild/retool.

If only Dirtbag Stern would've felt the same and didn't cok block our CP3 trade we would've been in a better shape we are today.

TonyMontana wrote:If only Dirtbag Stern would've felt the same and didn't cok block our CP3 trade we would've been in a better shape we are today.

I still hate him for that mess he pulled, but what's done is done. I just hope Silver give us our due because The CP3 thing was tragic.

I'm not really sure what to make of all this... To me it seems like there's a heavy dose of BS in all of this, from Jeanie's statements to the idea that Silver is 'empowering' her... To even some of the statements surrounding Phil's leaving, and Kobe's dissatisfaction...

All of it just seems a little forced and contrived. It's making for a tough read as far as what's really going on...

The rub is, I don't really believe too much of it and am waiting patiently for the days immediately preceding the draft.

I think the part about their mothers' share of the franchise seems to be pretty interesting. You never know if she'd leave her entire share to her sons, making Jim & Johnny the majority stake holders or leave it to the daughters or just distribute evenly.

Janie recently gave an interview somewhere where she said Jim was useless, Johnny was too shy and Jeanie was the who inherited her dad's charm.

Hell this whole thing seemed odd. Phil takes a job that was in the works and didn't just suddenly come out of no where.

Just like Adam Silver just didn't decide to have dinner with Jeanie. Silver knows this damn league isn't any damn good profit wise without the Lakers, Celtics,Knicks and Bulls being able to compete. He wanted to know what the hell was going on here and who was the real damn boss. Now we know it's Jeanie.

To know she could've hired Phil is disappointing, but it's obvious to know why she didn't. With Johnny and Jim being pussies about Phil, she said screw the drama.

Well I hope they get it together. I wonder if we can grab Monroe and place him with our draft pick. I just want them to get this thing together.

Slava wrote:I think the part about their mothers' share of the franchise seems to be pretty interesting. You never know if she'd leave her entire share to her sons, making Jim & Johnny the majority stake holders or leave it to the daughters or just distribute evenly.

Janie recently gave an interview somewhere where she said Jim was useless, Johnny was too shy and Jeanie was the who inherited her dad's charm.

Pretty sure that interview was the old Sports Illustrated article from back in the day that started this whole King Lear view of the Buss family.

poor joey and jesse, i'm sure they would have done a great job

Interesting stuff...Jeanie for sure seems to have the best of her Father, especially compared to Jimmy.

I also can understand why she chose not to ram Phil down everyone's throats...she does not want to completely hurt some of her family relationships, not to mention create tension in what I'm sure is an already dynamic marriage. Phil and Jeanie are the ultimate NBA power couple, I'll be curious to see how the future for both franchises plays out.

Never a dull moment in Laker Land.

Run-MKE 311 wrote:Interesting stuff...Jeanie for sure seems to have the best of her Father, especially compared to Jimmy.

I also can understand why she chose not to ram Phil down everyone's throats...she does not want to completely hurt some of her family relationships, not to mention create tension in what I'm sure is an already dynamic marriage. Phil and Jeanie are the ultimate NBA power couple, I'll be curious to see how the future for both franchises plays out.

Never a dull moment in Laker Land.

Very simple, there is a saying "Blood is thicker than water"

Her relationship with Phil can end at anytime and they both can move on but when it comes to your family no matter what happens they are still your family specially your brother.

I give her props, since certain members on this board have discredited her and tried to bash her because of her concerns on the direction this team was going, but you can clearly see that she could've brought Phil on board even over her own brother but she didn't. Props.

As a brother Im proud of her but as a boyfriend/fiancé she aint getting no @#$% from me for a while!!! lol

I still think that there is a power struggle between Jimmy and Jeanie.
I doubt very much that Silver had dinner with her just to tell her to take control of the Lakers. That's none of his business, and as a new commissioner, I doubt he would go there with her, as much as we all would love for her to have more control.
He met with her to set the ground rules about potential conflicts of interest that may come up since she is an owner of the Lakers and she is having a relationship with Phil, who is now leading basketball operations with the Knicks.
And by the way, who would leak this information, and why? It certainly wouldn't come from Silver's office. The leak most probably came from Jeanie's camp.
I think the best thing would be for all of them, including Kobe, to keep their mouths shut, and just focus on rebuilding. All this drama does not help, specially in recruiting of free agents.
The reason Phil wasn't hired by the Lakers is that there are already people in place in the Lakers FO that do the things he wanted to do. He wanted total control of basketball operations and a boat load of money. The Lakers already have Mitch and Jimmy doing those jobs. I really think they would have brought him on board as perhaps "the face" of the Lakers, but he would not have had the type of control and money he got from the Knicks so he bolted.

DEEP3CL wrote:Hell this whole thing seemed odd. Phil takes a job that was in the works and didn't just suddenly come out of no where.

Just like Adam Silver just didn't decide to have dinner with Jeanie. Silver knows this damn league isn't any damn good profit wise without the Lakers, Celtics,Knicks and Bulls being able to compete. He wanted to know what the hell was going on here and who was the real damn boss. Now we know it's Jeanie.

To know she could've hired Phil is disappointing, but it's obvious to know why she didn't. With Johnny and Jim being pussies about Phil, she said screw the drama.

i still havent seen any proof that Phil will be even a good GM or whatever his title is. you guys talk about Phil as if he is some sort of messiah that will save us, when the reality is he wouldve alienated someone very important to this franchise in Kupchak.

Doormatt wrote:

DEEP3CL wrote:Hell this whole thing seemed odd. Phil takes a job that was in the works and didn't just suddenly come out of no where.

Just like Adam Silver just didn't decide to have dinner with Jeanie. Silver knows this damn league isn't any damn good profit wise without the Lakers, Celtics,Knicks and Bulls being able to compete. He wanted to know what the hell was going on here and who was the real damn boss. Now we know it's Jeanie.

To know she could've hired Phil is disappointing, but it's obvious to know why she didn't. With Johnny and Jim being pussies about Phil, she said screw the drama.

i still havent seen any proof that Phil will be even a good GM or whatever his title is. you guys talk about Phil as if he is some sort of messiah that will save us, when the reality is he wouldve alienated someone very important to this franchise in Kupchak.

I don't view Phil as some messiah, but it's a fact that the Laker front office is lacking on the amount of "basketball minds" when it comes to decision making. Hell I'm also not so sure he's going to do all that well and I've posted that here already. That job entails just more than sitting in front of a veteran free agent. The lifeline to any team surviving long term is getting good drafts every once in a while. That's the area where Phil will struggle badly.

Mitch even said Phil's job is different than his own. He would've replaced Jim, and there's no doubt in my mind, that Phil is much more intelligent than Jim.

TyCobb wrote:Mitch even said Phil's job is different than his own. He would've replaced Jim, and there's no doubt in my mind, that Phil is much more intelligent than Jim.

Life's all about timing. Maybe if Phil were younger and could wait a year or two, but no way Dr. Buss dies and Jimmy votes to relinquish control. I mean look at how the fans have painted him, who in their right mind with any amount of self-respect or ego, would even consider giving up? Was just never going to happen.