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For anyone who loves drama, particularly family drama — think “Succession’ meets hoops — needs to take the time and read Baxter Holmes’ brilliant and meticulously reported story at ESPN on the Buss family infighting and the sale of a controlling interest of the team to Mark Walters.
One interesting part of that story: It wasn’t just Lakers fans who were frustrated with LeBron James in the wake of the team trading for Russell Westbrook, it was team governor Jeanie Buss as well — and she even floated the idea of trading him.
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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 floundering 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….
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…
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.)
Just as a background refresher, the Lakers were very close to a trade that would have sent Kyle Kuzma and Montrezl Harrell to Sacramento for Buddy Hield, allowing them to keep Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and put that shooting around LeBron and Anthony Davis. Instead, reportedly at LeBron’s urging, the Lakers pivoted to a trade for Westbrook, a deal that proved a legendarily bad fit.
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Buss also reportedly was frustrated that…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/frustrated-lakers-governor-jeanie-buss-180542996.html
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Publish date : 2026-01-21 18:05:00
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