The Buss kids don’t own shares individually. The Jerry Buss Trust or whatever it’s called owns the shares, and the way it’s structured is that each kid has an equal share of the Trust. One kid can’t sell, they either all or co-owners or none of them are. But every kid voted to sell in this instance. (Edit: every kid except Jeanie, just to clarify)

I believe Jeanie is trying to claim that they can’t sell below 15% because it would invalidate her previous contract that she would still be in a management role for the next several years.

I’m pretty confident on the first paragraph, less so on the second

Man who owns mucho of the Lakers surprise sold it. 

Buss family hates each other and wants to get in on this sale and out on the Lakers. 

Jeanie realizes without the team they are just another group of rich assholes with no semblance of relevancy. She wants to keep their shares and run the team. 

TLDR Lebron James cast plagues on the Lakers household. 

The argument by her lawyers is the trust needs unanimous consent to make a move that would remove Jeannie from being having a “controlling interest” that would put her in the governor’s position if available. Selling the trust’s take in the team to below 15%, which liquidating their entire position would do, means mean that she can’t be a governor per NBA rules.

But there’s nothing stopping Kushner and Iger from stopping her from being governor since they are not bound to honor Walter’s personal agreement with her on that matter. They could remove her unilaterally, in which case the trust would be free to sell since the “controlling owner” bit would no longer be relevant.
Iger basically said they are willing to keep her in that position for now but are open to changing that in the future. The new owners almost certainly want to the Busses to sell and would prefer if they did so and exited ownership on their own volition. But they can dump her all on their own if they want, and they very well may be willing to take action if a legal fight between the siblings becomes sufficiently ugly.

So even if her lawyers are correct (and who knows if that’s true), she is still in a very tenuous position. She needs to intimidate her siblings into backing down and making it less attractive for Kushner and Iger to drop her from the governor role. But the sibs may be willing to drag out a fight with the hope of making it such an annoying and dramatic side show that new owners just want to make the problem go away. If so, there’s really not much she can do about that beyond argue for better terms.

Walter committed heinous fraud with Saudi Arabian blood money. It’s catching up to him so he’s selling his assets to pay off the Trump admin/impending fines. The other Lakers owners likely got spooked and don’t want to be caught up in his mess so they decided to cash in on the record valuation.

My understanding is that there are essentially 2 separate issues in play that are clashing with each other now taht Jeanie is in danger of losing control of the franchise earlier than expected:

1. When the Busses sold to the now-outgoing owner last year, they kept 17% of the shares; if the buss family wants to sell that 17%, they need a ⁴⁄₆ majority vote, which they hit when ⁵⁄₆ voted to sell that 17% a couple of days ago. Jeanie does not like this.

2. There is “supposedly” a 2nd agreement, more like a court ruling allegedly, that 3 specific busses need to approve any sale of the team entirely: Jeanie and 2 others. Jeanie is contending that because she wasn’t on board with that ⁵⁄₆ vote, that this rule somehow supersedes that 1st rule and so that 1st rule shouldn’t count. I do not know how legit this is, as Jeanie’s own attorney (read: the person who does not like this) is the one saying it. So of course they would say this.

The core issue is that Jeanie was all for selling the team to the now-outgoing owner last year under the impression she would remain in control through 2030; this is a deal she made to a level that no one is certain of: was it in writing? A handshake? Who knows, but it’ll matter when it’s discovered. The other siblings at that time were content to let her play in the sandbox and not sell the 17%.

Now that the new owners are coming in, the other siblings don’t want to deal with them and want to get out entirely, something Jeanie alone does not want to do because if they do so, she’s dragged along for the ride and can’t remain controlling owner per her agreement with the outgoing owner. So now it’s a big fight over what happens: Does the ⁴⁄₆ majority take precedence, thus allowing the sale to go through and essentially kicking jeanie out against her will? Or does the “Jeanie + 2 specific siblings” approval of a sale take precedence, which means she can override that earlier ⁴⁄₆ vote? No one knows, but that’s what they’re fighting about.

Buss family has an agreement to keep at least 15% ownership of the Lakers. Currently right now they own 17.8%.

Unrelated to the latest Laker sale, financial exec of the Lakers got the Buss siblings together to see if they would like to change the agreement and sell all remaining shares.

Only way that happens, is if all siblings agree. Everyone but Jeanne agreed. Now the latest is that meeting was “unrelated” to the new sale.

Where’s Pablo when you need him 😂

It’s the sports version of Succession with somehow less likeable people. 

Can confirm Indian family is fighting over a small piece of land that really isn’t worth much lol

Same here. Aunts and uncles fighting over a “house” in a 3rd world country they haven’t lived in for 50 years. 

Shit happens in the US too, currently watching unfold in a less dramatic manner in the South 🤦🏽‍♂️

My mom’s cousins won’t talk to her over a perceived slight of 2 fucking grand each from one aunt with no kids. The slight didn’t even happen. My parents are the only ones to make anything worth passing down and I’m glad I’m an only child.

Could be worse, first cousins once removed that are trying to get a piece of a pie even though the properties are already properly divided between siblings.

The sister got fired too!

Jeanie fucked up by selling the team in the first place.

The best way to actually ensure control for life would be to keep majority ownership for life.

She tried to have her cake and eat it too. She wanted full control of the team, but also all the proceeds from selling it.

I suddenly got new respect for the Colts. Irsay’s daughters seem to be doing alright.

this is pretty much what happened with the Celtics. Irv Grousbeck was actually the fund. Wyc made money of his own, but as far as where the REAL money was coming from, was his dad. Wyc was the face. After Wyc started burning money to win them the ring in 2024, it started making the rest of the family think about how Irv was in his early-mid 90s and Wyc was running the team with a blank check. I think the rest of the family and Irv ultimately came to the agreement to sell to structure the estate before his passing.

Selling also just makes way more sense from estate planning purposes generally. Think someone like Michael Jordan. Great basketball player, lots of good business ventures. But he’s not just sitting on billions of cash. Say he dies at age 60 a few years ago (not unheard of), now his estate has this like \(3 billion assets sitting there, that's gonna be a massive estate tax bill, the rest of the estate doesn't have that kind of liquid cash laying around, the heirs don't just have that level of liquid cash laying around. If you sell the team now, you can profit and enjoy the fruits of that \)3 billion in your lifetime, do some estate planning things and when you die in however many years, the heirs are all better off for it.

Well, if they did the reporting right they would’ve reached out to Jeanie for comment. And that would’ve killed the story entirely. The whole point it got leaked is to pressure her. That doesn’t mean ESPN operated on good journalistic integrity, but we know that’s not their M.O. these days

Edit: to be clear they’re completely ok with this with the NBA to deflect from the Clippers shit show

this whole story is nothing but the nba and espn trying to hand wave the ballmer situation away and sweep it under the rug

Surprise here for me was Adam Streisand isn’t Babs’s son, he’s a cousin!

I mean Jeanie changed it to essentially remove her siblings. There’s enough money on the line that they will find a way.

From what I understand is the trust is required to keep Jeanie as the governor of the Lakers. But selling the majority of the team removed the control the trust had in that decision. However, Jeanie made a deal with Walter she would be governor for 5 years. But the family put a tag along clause allowing them to sell the trust if Walter sold the team and no one was expecting that Walter would sell the team so soon.

So my bet is the Lakers VP of Finance called the family together because things are now unclear legally. As there’s an agreement that they could sell their shares but also that Jeanie was guaranteed to be governor for a few more years. So he proposed that a new trust is created where the family members that wanted to keep their ownership of the Lakers can buy out the family members that didn’t. 

But the problem is Jeanie burned too many bridges and either doesn’t have the money to pay for the entire trust or the family is giving her the finger and refusing to sell their shares to her.

We need Game of Zones with Jeanie Buss as a crazed Rhaenyra trying to rule Kings Landing LA

That is the confusing part. Was the trust just for 10 years? That’s all I can think of.

Yeah, if she truly believe that she wouldn’t have called the emergency meeting. Her and her lawyer are grasping at straws to find something to stall/block the sale. I wouldn’t be surprised to watch her try and drag this out until the end of her negotiated governor tenure.

If I’m reading this correctly she’s baby sitting 6 of them

You clearly have no legal knowledge and no idea what you’re talking about.

Been saying this for a decade. Almost all of the Lakers issues stem from her in one way or another. Back to when Jerry decided to leave because of her relationship with Phil Jackson.

LeBron happy he made his exit when he did I bet

this is NOT that Kushner JFC

??? EA doesn’t own 2K, wtf

NBA 2k is not owned or created by ea, neither is mlb the show.

FC 2k? Lmao you don’t know what you’re talking about

Friendlier foreign policy to the region? Trump has effectively turned off a majority of their oil sales via the Hormuz Strait and provided zero stability or progress on a peace deal. The US allies in the region are reconsidering their SOFA agreements with the US military…

You are spreading misinformation