Los Angeles Lakers governor Jeanie Buss is contesting her siblings' vote to sell the family's remaining 17.8% stake in the team, according to a letter from her attorney obtained by ESPN — setting up a potential legal battle just days after new majority owners agreed to acquire the franchise in a record-breaking deal.

How the Dispute Started

The Buss family said in a statement Monday that they had voted to sell their remaining shares to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger at the same $12.5 billion valuation Mark Walter agreed to the previous week. The family believed they had the right to do so under a "tag-along" provision included in the original sale to Walter back in June 2025 — a clause that gave the family the right to sell alongside any future sale and valuation Walter secured for his own shares. Of the six Buss siblings — Jeanie, Jim, Johnny, Janie, Joey, and Jesse — all but Jeanie voted in favor of the sale.

According to NBA writer Yaron Weitzman, the five siblings in favor of selling sent Jeanie signatures indicating they wanted the family to sell its shares, which triggered the tag-along provision. The vote itself had reportedly been open since the previous Tuesday — before Walter's agreement with Kushner and Iger was even finalized — after Lakers vice president of finance Joe McCormack called an emergency meeting of the Buss siblings to discuss dissolving the family trust and locking down all family shares for four years under a new trust structure. No mention was made of Walter's impending sale at that meeting.

Jeanie Buss's Legal Argument

In a letter from her attorney, Adam Streisand, Jeanie Buss argued that a 2017 court ruling established that any sale of the family's shares cannot be "effectuated without approval by the co-trustees, i.e. Jeanie, Janie and Joey Buss." The letter contends the co-trustees are "bound to vote... to ensure that the minimum 15 percent ownership requirement is maintained in order to ensure that Jeanie Buss may remain Controlling Owner." Streisand demanded that the five siblings "make clear publicly that Jeanie Buss is the Controlling Owner of the Los Angeles Lakers" and "take no action on this supposed 'vote' to sell the 17.8% stake." Sources told ESPN that Jeanie was the lone sibling who didn't vote to sell, and multiple sources said she didn't even respond to the family vote.

What's at Stake for Jeanie Buss

Under Jeanie's original agreement with Walter, she was set to remain the team's controlling owner through 2030 despite the family selling its majority stake. However, NBA rules require an individual to own at least 15% of a franchise to serve as its governor — meaning if the family's remaining 17.8% stake is sold entirely, Jeanie would lose the ownership threshold needed to retain her role. CNBC reported that Jeanie specifically wants to keep the family's stake both to preserve its value and to remain the team's governor going forward.

Iger's Position

Bob Iger told the California Post last week that he intended to honor his agreement to keep Jeanie as controlling owner, though he added the caveat: "if something changes, then it changes" — a comment that now looks notably prescient given the current standoff. Should the full sale of the family's remaining stake go through as her siblings intend, Iger and Kushner's combined ownership would rise above 82%, and Jeanie Buss would no longer hold the ownership percentage required to remain governor.

A Family With a History of Discord

This isn't the first rift within the Buss family since Jeanie took over the franchise. She famously fired her brother Jim as vice president of basketball operations in 2017. According to CBS Sports, when the family's majority stake was originally sold to Walter, siblings Joey and Jesse voted in favor "not wanting to vote against the sale symbolically" — and were later fired from their positions with the team regardless. That history means all five of Jeanie's siblings have, at various points, been removed from their roles within the organization, while Jeanie alone has remained. Now, those same siblings are attempting to force a sale that would ultimately end her tenure as well.

What's Next

With Jeanie Buss's lawyer explicitly stating that "any 'vote' by any of the Buss siblings would be and is void," the dispute appears headed toward a legal confrontation over the trust's governance requirements and the validity of the tag-along clause. The outcome will determine not just the final ownership structure of the NBA's most storied franchise, but whether the Buss family's 47-year run atop the Lakers ends with Jeanie still at the helm — or fully severed from the team her father built. For continuing coverage, see ESPN's report.