A Family Divided: Unrest Growing in Buss Family as Lakers Struggle to Rebuild

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2648618-a-family-divided-unrest-growing-in-buss-family-as-lakers-struggle-to-rebuild



A Family Divided: Unrest Growing in Buss Family as Lakers Struggle to Rebuild



By Kevin Ding , NBA Senior Writer Jun 28, 2016





A Family Divided: Unrest Growing in Buss Family as Lakers Struggle to RebuildKevork Djansezian/Getty Images





LOS ANGELES — It was Jerry Buss' wish.

Call it a dying wish if you want, because he made it to his second son in his final days from a hospital bed. Buss was weak from chemotherapy treatments targeted at a tumor that kept growing back, late in a cancer fight he believed would continue longer than it did.

He could only stay awake for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. There was no comprehension of how poorly his team was doing with Dwight Howard.

But it was the same wish Jerry had carried for the past decade in his trust: His six children would inherit majority ownership in the Los Angeles Lakers from him, and that second son, Jim, would be in charge of the Lakers basketball operations.

Jerry encouraged Jim to assume the job Jim had dearly wanted for some time. Jim would boast to people back when the Lakers were still in the Forum in the late 1990s how he would shortly be in charge of the team, and it wouldn't even take his father's death to have it happen.

His father's appeal for him to do the job is a big part of why Jim is still where he is despite the poor on-court results and a work ethic his own family questions.

For months after his father's death, Jim went into a fog, wandering entirely away from work and his usual predraft responsibilities. He considered his mortality and whether he wanted to step down and have fun and even sell the team.

Ultimately, it was only a wish from Jerry.

As in, a hope that Jim could do it. Not necessarily a belief or trust.

Fathers and sons almost always do a complicated dance together, and sometimes hopes and dreams are easier to wrap arms around than each other.

In the years prior, Jerry Buss would get a light in his eyes and proud chuckle in his voice when he'd get a call from Jim on certain days.



Noah Graham/Getty Images
Mitch Kupchak, Jim Buss and Jerry Buss in 2008.


"Jim's in the office!" Jerry would report to those around him, a song in his tone.

It was such a rarity for that to be the case, but it gave the father reason to believe.

In fact, he told another person that he didn't envision Jim would do the job for more than five or six years.

That was five years ago.

Jerry Buss both worked and played hard, often eschewing sleep. But he preferred to guide rather than order anyone around. He placed his kids in sink-or-swim moments to add a risky edge to the opportunities he offered them.

It's just that Jerry had a bit of a blind spot when it came to Jim, who suffered stunning deaths to a best friend and a girlfriend and was viewed by his father as a fragile soul. Jim was also the child to whom Jerry was personally closest…and he was the only realistic option at the time among the children to handle the basketball post.

According to team and league sources, despite how the torch-passing was presented to media and fans, Jerry did not have deep confidence in Jim as a basketball visionary or even someone with the grit to stay in charge of Lakers personnel for the long haul.

Indeed, it should be known that the foundation of the struggling Lakers basketball operations was not expected to last.

Jim's siblings certainly know.

The great patriarch died in February 2013. After the three worst seasons in the history of the franchise, those vaunted family brands "Lakers" and "Buss" have both lost considerable shine in recent years. That the decline has come under Jim's watch has only furthered why things are quietly awkward.

Jim's siblings, who so genuinely want to win again, are holding out hope, same as their father did, that their dreamer of a brother can still make some offseason magic.

But they are in their final days of hoping.

They feel obligated to do right by the brands, the minority owners outside the family and definitely the people who make up perhaps the world's biggest fanbase, a group as frustrated as anyone in the family.

They're all Jerry Buss' children in a way.

It was Buss who shared with them his pride and certainty and team and success.



Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images
Jerry Buss celebrating the Lakers' 1985 NBA title with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (being interviewed by Brent Musburger) and Pat Riley.


In a sense, he gave them all life as part of this rich franchise.

However, only Johnny, Jim, Jeanie, Janie, Joey and Jesse were given directions to carry out his wishes.

His wishes. His blessings. His burdens.

People can only carry out the wishes of the past for so long into the future.

The lawyers, there to clarify the details about Jerry's trust, had left the room at the Lakers' offices at 555 N. Nash St., leaving just the six siblings in a family meeting.

Johnny, the emotional eldest son once in line to run the Lakers with Jeanie and Jim until it became clear he inherited far more play than work from his dad.

Jim, who'd left his life training horses when his father asked if he was ready to apprentice in basketball in 1997 and become an active part of management for the Lakers' 2009 and '10 NBA titles.

Jeanie, anointed team president and in charge of the Lakers' business side because of her dedication, experience and Jerry's appreciation she would be the fairest of them all.

Janie, whose interest in the family business increased recently as her children grew up but previously had done good work heading the Lakers Youth Foundation.

Joey, 21 years younger than Janie and now earning plaudits for what he has done in charge of the D-Fenders, the Lakers' successful NBA Development League affiliate.

And Jesse, a growing voice in basketball talent decisions in the Lakers scouting department and in Jerry's final stretch living under the roof of a father who named him after his own mother.

It was 2014, roughly a year since their father's death. The Lakers had far more losses on the ledger than usual, and it was time to ask Jim some pointed questions—particularly on the issue of bringing in one eager, available and esteemed Phil Jackson to assist Jim and general manager Mitch Kupchak with basketball operations. If not Jackson, then perhaps someone else could help.

Thanks, but no thanks, Jim told them flatly.

He was insistent he could do the job his father had handed over to him. Jim rejected the idea that Jackson's mere presence would help the brand even after his father previously thrived among a three-headed leadership committee of himself, Jerry West and Kupchak.

Jeanie held the presidential power to install Jackson, her fiance, in any role she desired or make any changes she saw fit. She preferred to withhold that power and build consensus, if possible.



Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press/Associated Press


Jeanie Buss and Phil Jackson, who moved on to take over the Knicks after the Lakers' hierarchy decided not to add him to the front office in 2014.
Out of love for Jackson, she also didn't want to push him into a situation where he wouldn't be welcomed to accomplish anything.

So Jeanie asked Jim a simple question, considering he was adamantly opposed to outside assistance:

How can we hold you accountable?

That prompted Jim to pledge a quick turnaround. Within three years, the Lakers would be "in contention for a championship," he promised his siblings.

Some believe Jim was so blatantly confident because he figured LeBron James was coming to the Lakers as a free agent that summer.

Indeed, his father had shot for the stars often and hit. So why wouldn't it happen again?

So Jim told people that Carmelo Anthony was coming the next summer. He told people that Howard was staying the previous year.

He told people as soon as the Lakers' recent season was winding down that Kevin Durant was coming this summer…with Russell Westbrook the next.

But with each failure, it became clearer and clearer that the optimism with which the Lakers approached each summer was rooted in the past.

In some ways, it reminds of a 1994 movie, Little Big League, in which a 12-year-old boy inherits the Minnesota Twins and promises he will resign as manager if he fails to improve the team.

Jim, according to many within the team, is a boy just wanting to play with his toy.

Still, Jim's brothers and sisters appreciated that he was willing to put himself on the line in the future with his three-year promise.

A Kupchak contract extension through 2018 at Jim's behest was eventually granted as part of his promise, even though Kupchak had irked some by pushing for his extension shortly after Jerry's memorial service, when emotions remained raw.

But when Jackson started talking with the New York Knicks about being in charge of their basketball operations, the siblings scrambled not to lose him.

That triggered a contentious email chain. Jim phoned some individually to lobby them to change their votes, according to team and league sources. Only Johnny, who had his own stretch of time not speaking to Jim, stood with Jim in opposition to hiring Jackson in some capacity.

Jeanie had been deeply wounded in November 2012 when Jim and Kupchak, at a time when her father was already in the hospital and mostly in an advisory management role, hired Mike D'Antoni as head coach when Jackson had been given the impression it was his job to take.



Ned Dishman/Getty Images
The hiring of Mike D'Antoni in 2012 over Phil Jackson cooled the relationship between Jeanie Buss and her brother Jim.


Now the door wasn't just open for Jeanie; it was as if the drawbridge had been lowered all the way, inviting her to summon her fiance to ride into the castle as the white knight.

Jeanie still didn't use her power, however. She set aside her personal convictions for redemption and let her beloved leave town for what she saw as a better job for him…and the best shot for her brother.

The ensuing two years haven't exactly been the high life for Jeanie.

Amid the Lakers' losing, she has continued in her role as the face of the franchise—trying to reassure fans and sponsors alike. People question and complain to all the siblings these days, but it's nothing like what it is for Jeanie, the type who is far more willing to take on others' pain than unload her own.

On top of living across the country from Jackson, Jeanie suffered a profound loss of another sort a year ago: Her dog died.

Princess Cujo was a 12-year-old Maltese. Jeanie, 54, has no children, and in her 2010 book Laker Girl, she referred to Princess—it was the devious Jackson who added the edgy middle name "Cujo" to provide the dog a more balanced identity—as "the center of my life outside of basketball and work."


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Jeanie Buss ✔ @JeanieBuss
Goodbye my sweet dog, Princess Cujo Buss. She was brave & beautiful. Our love will live forever in my heart.