Jeanie Buss has hired one of California’s best-known trust litigators to stop her five siblings from selling the Buss family’s last 17.8% of the Los Angeles Lakers — and her argument rests on a court order signed nine years ago. In a letter to the siblings’ lawyers, attorney Adam Streisand demanded they “make clear publicly that Jeanie Buss is the Controlling Owner of the Lakers and that your clients shall take no action on this supposed ‘vote’ to sell the 17.8% stake.” The stake is worth roughly $2.2bn at the $12.5bn valuation Josh Kushner and Bob Iger agreed with Mark Walter this month. If it is sold, Buss falls below the NBA’s 15% threshold to serve as a team’s governor, and the family’s association with the franchise Jerry Buss bought in 1979 ends.
A 17.8% stake and a 2017 court order
The Buss Family Trust holds the shares, and the six siblings — Jeanie, Jim, Johnny, Janie, Joey and Jesse — vote on what happens to them. At least five voted to sell, clearing the four-of-six threshold required to exercise the tag-along provision that lets the family ride out alongside Walter’s controlling interest.
Jeanie’s counter-argument is that the vote is irrelevant, because the trust’s shares are not controlled by a sibling headcount. Only three of the six are co-trustees: Jeanie, Janie and Joey. Streisand’s position is that no sale can be executed without the co-trustees’ approval, and that the trustees are bound by a 2017 probate ruling that instructed them “to ensure that [Jeanie Buss] is elected as the Controlling Owner of the Lakers on an annual basis during [Jeanie Buss’s] lifetime absent a further order of this Court modifying the Trust.”
That order came out of the last Buss family rupture, when Jeanie fired Jim from his role as executive vice-president of basketball operations and her brothers moved unsuccessfully to remove her. The court settled that fight in her favour and wrote the protection into the trust’s operating instructions. Whether an instruction to keep her as controlling owner also prohibits the trustees from disposing of the shares entirely is the question a judge will likely have to answer.
The siblings have not backed down. Their statement was unambiguous: “We have decided as a family to sell the remaining Buss Family Trust shares to the Bob Iger group as part of the ongoing transaction. We love the Lakers, Laker fans and will continue to support Los Angeles; but it is time to use this opportunity to move on and exit gracefully while we still can.” They have since said they intend to move forward “thoughtfully, respectfully and through the appropriate process.”
Two sales in fourteen months
The speed of this is the part without precedent. The Buss family agreed in June 2025 to sell control to Walter, the TWG Global chief executive who also controls the Los Angeles Dodgers, at a $10bn valuation. That deal closed in late October 2025. Jeanie stayed on as governor and president, which was reported at the time as a central condition of the transaction rather than a courtesy.
Ten months later Kushner and Iger approached Walter directly with an offer, and he agreed to sell his majority equity at $12.5bn — a $2.5bn paper gain in under a year, and the largest price ever paid for a US professional sports franchise. Several of Jeanie’s siblings were already frustrated with what they viewed as a rushed process in 2025; Walter’s quick flip did not soften that. With the new buyers taking Walter’s roughly 65% and the family’s 17.8%, Kushner and Iger would hold about 83% of the club.
What happens next
The practical deadline is the NBA Board of Governors meeting scheduled for 15-16 September, where the league’s owners would vote on approving the transfer. That gives both sides under a month to either settle or get in front of a judge. Key points in play:
- Whether the 2017 order binds the co-trustees to refuse a sale, or merely to support Jeanie’s governorship for as long as the trust holds shares.
- Whether Janie and Joey, who are co-trustees and voted to sell, are in breach of their fiduciary instructions.
- Whether the NBA approves a transaction that is under active family dispute, or waits.
For the basketball operation, the immediate stakes are lower than the headlines suggest. Rob Pelinka runs the roster, Luka Dončić is the franchise player, and the front office has continued working through the summer. But governance decides who hires and fires, and Jeanie Buss has been the Lakers’ final authority for 13 years — six championships across two eras of family control. She is now fighting to keep a job that a signature from her own brothers and sisters can eliminate.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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