The Los Angeles Lakers are undergoing another ownership change, as ESPN's Ramona Shelburne reported on Wednesday morning that Mark Walters is selling the team to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner in a move that no one saw coming. Putting the shock value aside, one of the many questions swirling around is how much say Jeanie Buss will still have, if any.
Roughly 14 months ago, when the Buss family sold to Walters, the plan was for Jeanie to remain as governor through 2030.
Iger himself said in an interview with the California Post, as Khobi Price wrote, that he and Kushner intend to honor the agreement Jeanie had with Walters.
“We have enormous respect and appreciation for Jeanie, her father and what they’ve contributed to this franchise. And we have every intention to honor the agreement that was made between Mark and Jeanie. If things change, they’ll change, but we’re going into this with enormous respect and appreciation for who she is and what she represents in the organization.”
What stands out from that is that Iger said, "If things change, they'll change." While Walters and Buss had a written agreement, there doesn't seem to be anything of the sort between Jeanie and the new owners, so they by no means have to honor it.
After all, look at how things unfolded between Mark Cuban and the Mavericks after he sold his majority stake to the Adelson and Dumont families at the end of 2023.
Will Lakers' new owners keep Jeanie Buss around?
There was nothing in writing between Cuban and Dallas' new majority owners that he would continue to have a say in the Mavericks' basketball operations. He assumed that was the case, even saying so publicly.
Of course, we all know what happened after that. A few months passed until Cuban realized he wouldn't have the say he once did. He wasn't part of the Luka Dončić trade in early 2025 that Nico Harrison orchestrated, but Patrick Dumont approved.
Cuban has since expressed regret over who he sold his majority stake to, though, of course, the Lakers are glad it all happened the way it did, including Jeanie, or else Dončić wouldn't be in purple and gold.
Right about now, though, Buss could be looking at the Dončić trade in a new light, wondering if she, too, will be phased out by the new owners, as Cuban was in Dallas. Iger said the right things, at least for the most part, but it wouldn't be advantageous for him or Kushner to burn the bridge with Jeanie right away.
Maybe Iger and Kushner truly do want to keep Buss around, but the similarities between Cuban and the Mavericks are too much to ignore.
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