LOS ANGELES — Jeanie Buss is fighting to stop her five siblings from selling the Buss Family Trust's remaining 17.8 percent stake in the Los Angeles Lakers to a group led by Bob Iger and Josh Kushner — and the dispute goes straight to the question of who controls one of the NBA's most valuable franchises.
The siblings voted Monday to sell the family's remaining shares at a $12.5 billion valuation, the same figure Mark Walter secured when he agreed to purchase his shares. The family cited a tag-along provision included in the earlier Walter sale, completed in June 2025, which gave the Buss family the right to join any subsequent sale at whatever valuation Walter obtained for his own shares.
Jeanie Buss was the one sibling who did not vote with the rest of the family. She did not respond to the family vote, and her lawyer, Adam Streisand, moved quickly to challenge its validity. In a letter obtained by ESPN, Streisand argued that a 2017 court ruling established that no sale of the family's stake can be completed without approval from all three co-trustees — Jeanie, Janie and Joey Buss.
"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 said. He told the five siblings who voted to sell that any effort to push the transaction forward "would constitute a breach of trust, breach of fiduciary duty and be in contempt of court."
Streisand demanded that the five siblings affirm Jeanie Buss as the controlling owner of the Lakers and take no action on the vote. He also demanded they make no move on the sale of the 17.8 percent stake.
The five siblings who voted to sell responded with a joint statement: "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."
The core legal and business issue is Jeanie Buss's position as team governor. If the 17.8 percent sale to Iger and Kushner goes through, she would fall below the ownership threshold required under NBA rules to remain the franchise's controlling owner. She secured an agreement with Walter when he first acquired the team that she would retain controlling ownership through 2030.
Iger addressed that agreement publicly last week in an interview with the California Post. He said he intended to honor it — but added a caveat: "If something changes, then it changes." That qualifier carries weight given that the transaction his group is pursuing would strip Jeanie of the ownership floor that underpins her status. Iger and Buss met late last week to discuss the transition from Walter, though the substance of that meeting has not been disclosed.
A spokesperson for Kushner and Iger declined to comment.
The vote to sell the family's remaining shares had actually been open since the prior Tuesday — before Walter finalized his deal with Kushner and Iger. That vote was called, according to sources, after Lakers vice president of finance Joe McCormack reached out to family members. The timeline means the sale framework was set in motion before the Walter agreement was publicly announced.
The Buss family has owned some portion of the Lakers franchise for 47 years, dating to the era of patriarch Jerry Buss. Jeanie has served as governor since 2013 and has been the public face of the franchise through multiple championship runs. The sale dispute is now a direct conflict between her effort to maintain control of the team and her siblings' decision to convert their ownership stake to cash at a $12.5 billion valuation.
The legal question turns on that 2017 court ruling and whether it requires unanimous co-trustee approval for any disposition of trust assets. If Streisand is right, the siblings cannot complete the transaction without Jeanie's sign-off — giving her effective veto power over the family exit. If the Iger-Kushner group and the five siblings press forward anyway, the dispute heads toward litigation and almost certainly a court injunction fight before any transfer closes.
The stakes extend beyond the Buss family. The Lakers, valued at $12.5 billion in this transaction, are among the most commercially valuable franchises in American professional sports. Iger, the former Disney CEO, and Kushner, who runs Thrive Capital, represent the ownership profile the NBA actively courts. The league and Commissioner Adam Silver have not commented publicly on the family dispute. NBA ownership transfers require league approval — and a contested sale with active litigation is exactly the kind of complication that can stall that process indefinitely.
