Lakers boss Jeanie Buss approaches critical juncture of franchise's rebuild
Beyond the bay window that looks onto the Lakers practice court, the Buss family’s second team was beginning to practice. Jeanie Buss likes to watch the Development League’s D-Fenders from up here, in the office that once belonged to her dad. She knows the players’ stories if not their names, and has a particular fondness for No. 7, Troy DeVries. The 34-year-old shooting guard’s entire professional career, before this season, was spent overseas.
She looked out past the 10 championship trophies that line the window, standing sentry for all that happens below.
Pointing to an open spot on the credenza, she said, wi****lly, “There’s room for one more.”
Her voice was scratchy, the remnants of an illness that nearly kept her from attending the Lakers’ loss two nights earlier to the New York Knicks, run by her fiancée, Phil Jackson.
Buss is the business whiz behind the branding and sponsorships of the Lakers, the keeper of the glamour franchise she and her five siblings inherited when their father, Jerry Buss, died in February 2013.
Her fingerprints are on the reported $3 billion television deal with Spectrum SportsNet and the 120,000-square foot practice facility the team will move into next season. She is admired by executives throughout sports and entertainment.
“Everything you look for in a CEO, she has,” Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said.
Yet, when it comes to the most visible and closely watched half of the family business, the Lakers themselves, she has remained hands-off. Her brother, Jim, and General Manager Mitch Kupchak run basketball operations, while she handles everything related to the business of the Lakers.
It’s a fulfillment of her father’s road map for the Lakers, one that has led the franchise down a rockier path than anyone could have imagined. Now, approaching three years since her brother pledged in an interview to resign in “three or four years” if the Lakers were not “contending for a championship,” Jeanie Buss is on the clock, facing a dramatic decision.
Does the promise shown by Coach Luke Walton and the Lakers’ young core absolve Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak for three years of losing, the sort of streak Jeanie Buss says her father “just wouldn’t have tolerated”?
For those three years, Jeanie Buss has honored her brother’s timeline.
“That’s what he said, so I have to give him his time,” she said. “I have to.”
It’s a pledge that might prove to be Jim Buss’ undoing. Reached by the Southern California News Group last week, he said he “wasn’t referring to a certain playoff position” and that the deadline “really wasn’t as clear as people say it is.”
“This was quotes from three or four years ago,” he said. “Those were what the path was supposed to be.”
On that front, Jeanie Buss has been unequivocal. She said as recently as February that anything less than the second round of the playoffs would qualify as falling short.
Therein lies the stark divide between the siblings.
Jim Buss said injuries and the Kobe Bryant farewell tour derailed what her were otherwise reasonable expectations. He now believes in a different measuring stick.
“If I feel that the strides have been made,” Jim Buss said, “and the team is going in a very positive – not just a positive direction – a very positive direction, I don’t see a switch happening.”
The two most prominent Buss siblings agree that the season needs to play out before any decisions can be reached.
“We’re like every other team that we will play a season and we will assess that season when it’s over,” Jeanie Buss said. “No reason to speculate on any possible changes. It’s a waste of time to speculate.”
There is, however, no avoiding the elephant in the room.
Few dispute that the Lakers finally have some positive momentum. Luke Walton guided a core of young players to a 10-10 start this season before suffering a December drop-off.
They enter their Christmas Day showdown with the Clippers at 11-22, losers of 12 of their past 13 and seemingly headed for a fourth straight sub-.500 season.
Jeanie Buss, the ultimate decider, has watched this section of history unfold, both from her prominent, lower-bowl seat at Staples Center and from her nest inside the El Segundo headquarters; overlooking, but not overseeing.
What comes next is downright Shakespearean.
She will decide the professional futures of her brother and Kupchak, who has spent more than 30 years with the organization. She might remove one or both or coerce their resignations. She might be tasked with hiring replacements.
Or she can maintain the status quo, effectively making her just as culpable for the basketball decisions from which she has been so strategically separated.
Which path best honors the vision of her father? Which option is in the best interest of the Lakers?
“To have a decision like that, that is the core of your being,” said Jeff Shell, the chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group and a longtime confidant of the Lakers president. “It’s your family and your business. It’s really tough.
“The one thing I’m confident about is she’ll make the decision from a pure standpoint. In other words, what’s best for the long-term health of the Lakers brand in Los Angeles.”
Buss is the figurehead of a family enterprise. She leans heavily on those she trusts, but ultimately, she is the boss. One way or another, her fingerprints will soon be all over the team that takes the court at Staples Center.
“I think she understands that she has to make decisions that are important for the future of the franchise, for the growth of the franchise,” said Jerry West, who ran the Lakers front office alongside Kupchak until the summer of 2000 and is currently an executive board member with the Golden State Warriors. “She knows she has to do that. And I don’t think she’d be afraid to do that.”
CONSCIENCE OF THE FAN
To watch Jeanie Buss watch the Lakers is a study of Los Angeles itself. The entire city seems to flow past her seat, one row behind courtside and directly across from the Lakers bench. She is uniquely accessible. Actors stop to chat. Floyd Mayweather pauses for a hug. On one night she is joined by David Hasselhoff, a friend of her father’s; another, it’s Larry David, the “Curb Your Enthusiasm “ star.
While some owners hide out in suites, or are escorted to their seats by a ring of beefy security dudes, Buss is among the people, honoring requests for selfies, just another fan who loves the home team.
“She’s not wearing a big crown that says, ‘I’m the owner of the Lakers,’” said Tim Harris, the Lakers chief operating officer. “She’s sitting there saying, ‘You want to come up and talk to me? I’m sitting here, season ticket holder in Section 117.’”
Her accessibility is reflected in the way she conducts business.
“Jeanie is kind of the conscience of the fan,” Harris said. “She’s kind of like the person who’s always going to make sure the fan is represented in the room.”
Buss frets over things most wearing suits might not. She laments fans who spent money on Dwight Howard jerseys, only to watch the mercurial center bolt for Houston a year after he arrived. She struggles with the Lakers losing seasons because that isn’t what the organization promised its massive support base.
“We created a product that we got our fans used to,” she said, “and now we’re not delivering that same product.”
Buss projects an image of comfort, speaking a language that is easily understood. She is someone you feel you would trust with something you love.
“She is very, very kind and very, very nice,” said Shell, who was an executive at Fox when the broadcasting giant held the Lakers television rights, “but she can be tough in business. In the business world, if you try to take advantage of that kindness, you’ll see a tough side to Jeanie that she also has.”
Like so many of her traits, that comes from her father.
She learned at the feet of Jerry Buss, managing professional indoor tennis and roller hockey teams at The Forum before she became the arena’s president.
“I know she watched and paid attention and learned from her dad in every way possible,” said Casey Wasserman, whose sports marketing and talent management firm, Wasserman Media Group, has represented former Lakers. He also counts Jeanie Buss as a close friend.
In 1995, Jerry Buss tabbed his daughter an alternate governor, allowing her to attend NBA meetings on behalf of the Lakers. Soon, West was stopping by her office to discuss the direction of the team and explain why certain moves had been orchestrated.
“There was a point in time where she sort of went to University of Lakers,” Harris said, “and she started getting her Ph.D. in Lakers.”
Over time, she has become one of the most prominent women in sports business.
Kathryn Schloessman first met Buss when both were undergraduate students at USC. They sat together in a physics class for non-science majors.
Years later, when Schloessman became the president of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission, she and Buss teamed up for an annual all-access event at Staples Center.
“It’s pretty unique to have somebody who’s so approachable,” Schloessman said. “Sometimes it’s hard to get to the CEO or the president of a team and she’s open all the time.”
With the Lakers floundering last season, Schloessman anticipated their event would struggle to sell tickets. Knowing this, Buss, who sits on the commission’s board, recruited Shaquille O’Neal to appear. Tickets sold out.
“In what would have been the worst year for our event she made it the best year,” Schloessman said.
Buss is not down in the weeds, negotiating the nuts and bolts of contracts, but she is a strong voice in the boardroom. At one point deep in negotiations for the groundbreaking broadcasting deal with what was then Time Warner Cable, Harris said, some within the Lakers organization were arguing over extra provisions that protected the franchise.
Buss shut it down, saying, “If we’re not going to trust them, then let’s just not be partners.”
“It illuminated everything,” Harris said, “because it was very clear-cut. Either we’re going to go with them and trust them and conduct business, but if we don’t think we can trust them, then let’s just not do it.”
He said she uses her authority in a responsible, cerebral way.
“There’s no bigger, better hammer than Jeanie when it comes to getting something done,” Harris said.
When the Lakers partnered with UCLA Health for the new practice facility, it was Buss who went to the team’s medical staff to make sure everyone understood the deal meant changing team physicians and ensured they were comfortable.
It’s the same within broader NBA circles.
“She has a great relationship with every owner,” Cuban said, “which allows her to discuss issues with any of us and figure out how to get things done. She can relate to people and is a great listener. She is far from mild-mannered. She has no problem taking a position and sticking to her guns, even if it means a lot of owners disagree with her.”
Buss sits on the league’s labor committee, which just approved the contentious new Collective Bargaining Agreement with players.
“Her dad carried a ton of weight, because he wasn’t like the jack-in-the-box, up and down, up and down, up and down, to say things,” Harris said. “The owners know that when she stands up she’s wearing a Laker hat, but she’s not just hammering what’s good for the Lakers is good for the Lakers. Her points often are this is what’s good for the league.”
PATIENT BUT DECISIVE
On the day she spoke in her office, Buss had to choke back tears.
“It’s hard to hear anybody be critical of my family,” Buss said, “and especially so quickly after losing my father to go ...”
Her voice began to quiver. She took a long pause.
“It just wasn’t what I expected to happen.”
She is referring to the losing. The dramatic demise of the supposed super team assembled in the final months of Jerry Buss’ life, the flops that were the moves for Howard and Steve Nash.
“She has been patient when lots of others wouldn’t have been with her brother and others during one of the toughest periods in her family’s ownership, which is difficult to do.” Wasserman said. “And she doesn’t get enough credit for that.”
She does, however, believe in the future.
Jeanie Buss was running holiday errands while the Lakers played in Sacramento the night before, so she wasn’t watching when Walton earned his first career ejection for an entertaining but profane eruption at the officials. She heard about it, and does not mind.
“I know his moral compass so well that if he felt that way, he was right,” she says.
Walton has visited Buss’ office at least a dozen times, she said, a dramatic shift from the distance kept by Byron Scott and Mike D’Antoni. The strain was palpable after the Lakers made the surprising, 11th-hour hire of D’Antoni in 2012 when Jackson was anticipating an offer.
“I have the ultimate faith in Luke Walton,” she said. “I think he brings the joy of the game, and when you see players play with that joy and that competitiveness, that’s what you fall in love with. He’s just brought all of that.”
Walton was hired by Jim Buss and Kupchak. And those two, along with their staffs, were responsible for drafting D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and Brandon Ingram in the lottery, and mining Larry Nance Jr. and Jordan Clarkson with later draft picks.
On the flip side, the duo has consistently struck out in free agency, and struck questionable long-term deals with Timofey Mozgoz and Luol Deng.
It presents a quandary for Jeanie Buss.
“Obviously, everybody wants to know what she’s going to do,” Wasserman said.
Said Schloessman, “She’s not just sitting back waiting for something else to happen. She has a plan and she’s working her plan.”
“Her dad was known for making kind of the aggressive, tough decision and not waiting too long,” Shell said. “Jeanie’s like that, too. She doesn’t dither. She makes the decisions pretty quickly.”
Jim Buss said he does not believe his sister is concentrating on the future of the front office, but, like him, is waiting to see how the rest of the season plays out.
“That’s what she’s supposed to do,” he said, “is see the direction of how the front office is going.”
He said he and his sister will sit down at the end of the season, like any other year, and evaluate.
“It’s hard to comment on something that hasn’t even happened yet,” he said. “We’re assuming that the Lakers will not be in a position for me to stay confident about me staying in that position. You’re trying to predict where we’re going to be. If we end up being the worst bottom three teams, I can say you’re right. But I don’t think we are.”
If the Lakers show progress, Buss said, and “the coach is happy with everything the front office is doing,” he does not expect he will be going anywhere. With those caveats, Buss reinforced his earlier point: “I think it would be a big mistake on the Lakers’ part to make any switches.”
The organizational structure was designed so Kupchak and Jim Buss could operate freely, that they wouldn’t feel like business dictated basketball, that they were under any pressure to sell tickets. The Lakers lost a franchise-worst 65 games last season, yet 97 percent of the season ticket holders renewed.
“What was difficult for me was changing coaches every 18 months,” she said, “changing players. It’s like, OK, where are we going? I can’t find a direction.”
When the Lakers are accused of relying only on their history, Buss is mindful of one more lesson from her father.
“He was always clear,” she said, “in wanting the organization to evolve and never to be stuck in the past. Keep the standards of the past, but that the game was always going to evolve.”
When Jerry Buss first bought the Lakers from Jack Kent Cooke in 1979 and he began doling assignments to his daughter, she said he often told her, “Do things with your touch, Jeanie.”
“He gave us freedom,” she said, “and I imagine he said the same thing to my brother. It’s keep moving forward.”
Pencil in that L for X-Mas.
