[Holmes] Multiple people said Jeanie privately mused about not giving (LeBron) James a contract extension and, later that year, even about trading James… when the Lakers drafted James’ son Bronny with the 55th pick in the 2024 draft, Jeanie privately remarked that James should be grateful
It’s not clear when Jeanie learned about the promise between JoAnn and her father, but when she spoke over the phone with Jesse on that 2019 call, in what multiple sources with knowledge of it say marked a sharp pivot from the topic of the Davis news conference, she brought it up.
Given that promise between her mother and father, Jeanie told Jesse, “You should’ve never been born.”
Jesse processed the words, according to the three people briefed on the call.
“You should’ve never been born.”
The words echoed in more ways than one. There had always been distance between the four older and the two younger siblings – and not just because of the pronounced age gap, with 31 years separating the oldest (Johnny) and youngest (Jesse). The older siblings often said that their father was frequently absent during their childhoods and that his empire was built by the time Joey and Jesse were born.
“When Joey and Jesse arrived, watching my dad and the joyful part of fatherhood and watching him engage with them, it reminded me of the things that he missed when I was growing up,” Jeanie said in the 2022 Hulu series.
News of Jeanie’s comments on the call with Jesse soon made the rounds within the organization and to Joey.
“It’s mind-blowing that she would say that,” said someone on the team who became aware of the remarks. “I don’t care who you are. You don’t say that to somebody else.”
Said another: “Why would that ever get thrown into somebody’s face? I don’t know.”
Of Jeanie’s alleged remark to Jesse, Janie said, “I can’t imagine my sister saying that, but that was the truth. They [Jerry and JoAnn] did have an understanding.”
An obvious but ominous dynamic had revealed itself from that call, people close to the family told ESPN – the remark was perhaps a sign of something more, a deep-rooted resentment that for decades had lingered.
“That,” someone close to the family said, “was the beginning of the end.”
IN THE YEARS since, multiple team sources said they sensed Jeanie’s priorities beginning to shift. The organization took significant criticism over how it was being run, and she often took it personally, those close to her said.
When external critics called the organization cheap, they were calling her cheap. When critics questioned why she listened to Linda and Kurt Rambis, they were questioning her judgment. When Pelinka came under public fire for the team’s roster construction, she took barbs for standing by him. She was quick to label critics as wrong, cruel and biased.
She tightened her circle. She grew more suspicious of leaks. She crafted her public image – and narrative – through favorable media coverage. “She’s PR savvy, and she utilizes it,” a team member said. “She prioritizes that.”
She also came to be known in some circles for turning against those who were close to her and dear to the franchise. She had done so to Jerry West. She had done so to her brother Jim.
And team sources tell ESPN she even began to turn against the Lakers’ star player, LeBron James.
Jeanie privately grumbled, people close to the team say, about what she felt was James’ outsized ego and the overt control that he and Klutch Sports, which represents both James and Anthony Davis, exerted over the organization at times.
She didn’t like that James was considered a savior for a foundering franchise when he arrived in 2018 and that it was he who chose the Lakers rather than the team’s leadership receiving praise for landing him. Team sources have been adamant for years that James’ camp informed the Lakers as early as 2017 that he was coming to join them when he became a free agent the following year.
The distance between Jeanie and James widened after the Lakers traded for Russell Westbrook in July 2021, people close to the team said. The team had made the trade in an effort to appease James, but the acquisition backfired in catastrophic fashion. L.A. went 33-49 and missed the playoffs, and James seemed to wash his hands of his role in the acquisition.
Jeanie privately bristled about what she felt was his lack of accountability and the way James would shift blame onto others after the Westbrook trade, the people said.
In 2022, in the aftermath of the Westbrook trade, multiple people said Jeanie privately mused about not giving James a contract extension and, later that year, even about trading James, with the LA Clippers floated as a possibility. (This was before James received a no-trade clause in July 2024 after signing a new two-year, $104 million contract.)
And when the Lakers drafted James’ son Bronny with the 55th pick in the 2024 draft, Jeanie privately remarked that James should be grateful for such a gesture, but she felt that he wasn’t, people close to the team told ESPN.
That summer, as she discussed a new contract for James, Jeanie seemed more resigned to the fact that they’d have to do it – almost begrudgingly accepting that they’d take a massive PR hit by not doing so.
Under Jeanie’s leadership, the team had been through years of dysfunction – of distrust, increasing isolation and discord – and then, there was the on-court product.
The Lakers had missed the playoffs twice in 34 seasons under Jerry Buss; by spring 2024, they had missed the playoffs seven times in the 11 seasons since.
They had won 10 titles under Buss; they had won one since. They had posted the NBA’s best winning percentage under Buss; they had posted the 26th-best since.
Since the team moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, seven of the team’s 11 worst seasons in terms of winning percentage – including the four worst – had all come since Buss died and Jeanie took over.