Jeanie Buss Foils Brothers' Attempted Coup

Things are going really well for the Lakers right now.

by Sean Newell
Mar 3 2017, 10:33pm

© Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

Wins on the court have been hard to come by for Jeanie Buss and the Lakers, but a win in court might be just what the doctor ordered. Or not, as this actually sounds like a mess, but 1) you can see why I went for it, and 2) she did win! The latest chapter in the sibling feud for Lakers supremacy saw Jeanie seeking a temporary restraining order against brothers Jim and Johnny to keep them from ousting her as controlling owner. Not two weeks ago, Buss fired Jim as vice president of basketball operations, and installed Magic Johnson as president of basketball operations, days before the NBA trade deadline. In the interim, according to the Los Angeles Times, it seems the Buss boys have been plotting a coup.

The family trust that technically controls the team can elect three members to the team's five member board of directors. The Brothers hatched a plan to hold a meeting next week in which they would elect a new board of directors that would not include Jeanie. In order for her to be the controlling owner, she must be on the board. Jeanie evidently got wind of the plan and filed the restraining order today.

"This is no doubt the beginning and not the end of the game-playing," Adam Streisand, an attorney for Jeanie Buss, told The Times. "They don't have a legal leg to stand on. This is a legal strategy doomed for failure."

The brothers scratched the plan once the restraining order was filed, but that's hardly the point. They've been fighting like this since Jeanie took control after their father's death in 2013 and they're still going to court to sort the whole mess out later this spring. All of which is to say: the Lakers are a disaster, and the biggest thing they have going for them at the moment is that they happen to play the same sport as the New York Knicks.

[LA Times]