The Los Angeles Lakers‘ transition out of longtime family control didn’t just rewrite NBA business history, but also exposed deep personal fractures that helped set the stage for arguably the most consequential sale in professional sports.
At the center of that story is a terse remark made by Jeanie Buss, Lakers governor, to her younger brother that people close to the family say rippled through boardrooms and living rooms alike long before a recordbreaking $10 billion transaction was signed.
The Lakers, whose legacy was shaped by Showtime and NBA royalty from Magic Johnson to Kobe Bryant, will soon be majorityowned by billionaire businessman Mark Walter, the chief executive of TWG Global, under a sale approved by the NBA Board of Governors.
For 46 years, the Lakers had been run by members of the Buss family after patriarch Dr. Jerry Buss purchased the team in 1979.
His daughter Jeanie Buss became the controlling owner and team governor after he died in 2013, but internal disagreements about the franchise’s future, both personal and financial, simmered for years.
Los Angeles‘ purple and gold franchise is now poised for a new chapter under Walter‘s stewardship, leaving the Buss era, spanning more than four decades, in the rearview.
But according to league insiders and people with direct knowledge of family dynamics, that shift was preceded by years of simmering resentment among family members that ultimately fractured trust within the clan that made the Lakers a global brand.
Family tensions and a high-stakes sale
The defining moment cited by multiple sources occurred in a 2019 call between Jeanie Buss, the team’s governor since their father Jerry Buss died in 2013, and her much younger brother Jesse Buss, one of Jerry‘s two sons from a later relationship.
On that call, Jeanie uttered a phrase that people familiar with the situation say revealed deeper resentments within the family: “You should’ve never been born.”
Those words, repeated by multiple sources close to the family, have since become symbolic of underlying fractures that observers say would later influence how the sale was handled.
One notable example was the dismissal of Jeanie‘s brothers Joey Buss and Jesse Buss from front office positions in late 2025, which Jesse publicly criticized as part of broader dysfunction within the franchise.
Before his death, Jerry Buss himself reportedly grappled with whether to sell the team in the early 2000s, telling family members it wasn’t something he personally wanted unless the family agreed it was the right move.
Over the years, a complex family trust, structured in a way that redistributed ownership among surviving siblings rather than passing to heirs, also created tension, as some members worried their stakes would diminish over time if the team remained unsold.
Those internal pressures coincided with a rapidly rising valuation for the Lakers. By mid-2025, Walter, already a minority stakeholder and majority owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, made an offer that valued the Lakers at roughly $10 billion, an unprecedented figure for a U.S. professional sports franchise.
Walter‘s bid effectively accelerated plans that some Buss siblings had been contemplating for years.
Rather than maintaining the status quo or selling only a minor stake, the family agreed to sell a controlling share.
Under the deal, the Buss family will retain a minority stake of just over 15%, the minimum required under NBA rules for Jeanie Buss to continue as governor.
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