Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Byron Scott on how he became a Laker after being drafted by the Clippers: What was their hesitation on not signing you? Byron Scott: If you hear some of the stories, Donald Sterling wanted a Laker. He wanted a Laker badly. And I think he had met with Dr. Jerry Buss at some dinner or something and they talked about some things and Norm Nixon's name was mentioned. So Sterling went back to the head guys, Pete Babcock and those guys, and said ‘I want to make this trade’. So basically the Clippers traded my draft rights to the Lakers and Swen Nater for Norm Nixon and Eddie Jordan.
Shams Charania: Statement from Joey and Jesse Buss: “We are extremely honored to have been part of this organization for the last 20 seasons. Thank you to Laker Nation for embracing our family every step of the way. We wish things could be different with the way our time ended with the team. At times like this we wish we could ask our Dad what he would think about it all.”
The Lakers, however, weren’t worried about minutiae, and they certainly weren’t going to let something as seemingly trivial as pick swaps get in the way of their latest star pursuit. Especially Jeanie, who remembered how her father, Jerry Buss, had fawned over Davis during Davis’s Kentucky days. This was a franchise built on the backs of star pairings. Magic and Kareem. Kobe and Shaq. LeBron and AD would be next in line. “Ultimately, it was my decision to push the button,” Jeanie said years later. On June 15, just two days after the Raptors knocked off the Warriors in the finals, the Lakers and Pelicans agreed to terms. The Pelicans would get Ball, Ingram, Hart, and three first-round picks. They’d also get the right to swap picks in 2023. (3)
Advertisement
Joe Lacob: Jerry Buss had such an amazing record. I think it was 16 out of 33 years he made the finals, which is an incredible thing. I don't know that we can achieve that. Tim Kawakami: It'll be really hard mathematically at this point. Lacob: it's just really hard. You have to have multi-generations of great players and it's tougher maybe than it was before, too. More parity. The commissioner wanted it, he got it. But we're going to try to strive for the next 15 years to be as good as these last 15 years, and I'd be pretty happy with that.
The Lakers' rivalry with the Celtics apparently extends way further than the hardwood -- as Byron Scott was all smiles on Thursday realizing the sale of L.A.'s NBA franchise this week topped Boston's by nearly $4 billion!!! The former Lakers player and head coach was thrilled to see Jeanie Buss get $10 billion for her beloved team on Wednesday ... happily gloating that it bested Boston's $6.1 billion sale in March. "That's all that matters," Scott said of the price difference with a big grin. "We topped them. We topped them! We beat them by $3.9 billion!"
All jokes aside, Scott did say he was "extremely happy" for the Buss family, whom he's known for decades. He did admit, though, Jeanie's decision to sell did surprise him a little. "We all know at the end of the day it is a business," he said. "And business is always in business to try to make money. But I think the Buss family has done it right for so many years, led by Dr. Jerry Buss, who, in my mind, is still to this day the best owner I've ever seen in professional sports."
In 2005, The Times’ Hall of Fame basketball writer, Mark Heisler, wrote about Buss’ succession plan coming into focus. “Jerry Buss wanted a crowd-pleasing basketball team the movie stars could relate to but might have gone too far,” Heisler wrote. “He wound up with the greatest floating soap opera in sports, and basketball was almost beside the point.” Still, it was Buss’ legacy. “I just can’t visualize myself walking away, relinquishing control,” Buss said in a 2002 story in The Times. “My relationship with this team is a lifelong marriage.”
The Lakers still operated a profitable business in recent years as the salary cap grew exponentially, sources said. Since Jeanie Buss became governor in 2013, the Lakers have spent more than $1.5 billion in salaries and tax, eighth in the league in that span according to ESPN NBA front office insider Bobby Marks, and won their 17th title in 2020. The only team with more championships since Jerry Buss left the franchise to his children is the Golden State Warriors and their dynastic run of four. But in the NBA, teams endlessly scheme to discover every little advantage they can, and the relatively cash-poor Lakers struggled to keep up with the arms race.
Advertisement
Ramona Shelburne: Dr Jerry Buss structured the trust that owns the Lakers so that only his six children could decide on a sale. And it had to be a majority vote to sell. In 2017 the older brothers tried to force Jeanie Buss out as chairman of the board but lost that vote. Wednesday a majority of the six Buss siblings voted to sell to Mark Walter for $10 billion. Jeanie Buss was one of them.
Mark Walter’s pending $10B purchase of the Lakers was an offer that controlling owner Jeanie Buss could not refuse at a time the Buss family had prioritized estate planning and had begun to contemplate a sale, sources said Wednesday. “I believe it’s a good day for the family, and [Dr. Jerry Buss] is smiling down from heaven,” said a source close to the franchise, confirming that the Buss family will retain roughly 15% of the team.
Magic Johnson: I know that my sister Jeanie would have only considered selling the Lakers organization to someone she knows and trusts would carry on the Buss legacy, started by her father Dr. Buss. Now she can comfortably pass the baton to Mark Walter, with whom she has a real friendship and can trust. She’s witnessed him build a winning team with the Dodgers and knows that Mark will do right by the Lakers team, organization, and fans! Both are extremely intelligent, visionaries, great leaders, and have positively impacted the greater Los Angeles community! I love both my sister @JeanieBuss and my business partner Mark Walter.
How special was it for you to have your No. 21 jersey retired by the Lakers? What did that moment mean to you? Michael Cooper: That’s the one that brought me to tears. Hall of Fame I cried a little bit because I was a little emotional because you’re thinking about all the people that helped you out along that path. But the criteria for getting your jersey number retired I was told by the late great Jerry West was a little different and you had to be an All-Star; you had to have certain criterias — you had to average 15 or something points, but with Jeanie Buss taking the lead of her dad Dr. [Jerry] Buss, who’s always been an innovator and creator and just doing different things out of the norm; when they came and told me that they were going to honor me, and I think a little bit of that had to do with me being in the Hall of Fame, I never ever could see my jersey being hung up in the rafters for however long basketball to be played wherever it is that the Lakers play is the ultimate honor and I’ve always played this game for the love of the game and once I got the love in me, I’ve always played for championships and I’ve always wanted to be part of something special; and the Lakers is like family. That’s the only organization that I’ve ever known. I’ve never played for another owner — I’ve played for different coaches, but Pat Riley was THE COACH for me.