Finally, during the draft, Charlotte took him, and we were able to acquire Kobes rights. Life is funny that way. We wouldnt have to spend the midlevel exception; we could try to find midlevel value guys for a fraction of the price. My father, Dr. Jerry Buss, holds the honor of being the most successful owner in the history of professional sports. Before he embraced the Playboy philosophy in the mid-1960s, he. Dr. Buss was very thoughtful. Smiled and laughed, drank champagne and went to the White House. EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Jerry Buss' children intend on carrying out their father's succession plan for the Los Angeles Lakers following the iconic owner's death Monday. Here are the tributes to Betty Jean Buss. He had a huge, beautiful office with all kinds of knick knacks and stuff like that. He loved plays, and he wanted the focus to be on the athletes and the court. New Jersey was going to draft him at seven, which they did not. Buss was an inaugural member of the USC College Board of Councilors. And little did we know wed be teammates months later extremely serendipitous. Jerrys 66 percent ownership of the team passed to each of his six children via a trust, equating to 11 percent per child. Whos your favorite band? We owned a box at the Forum as a family, so we went to a lot of events, and it was the beginning of him seeing an opportunity and pursuing it with a passion that when you own these kinds of teams, you feel, as an owner, that the team is going to somebody who cares about it as much as you do. (Fast forward to the Finals) against Indiana, and in the 4th quarter and my dad grabs me and Jesse with a minute left in the game, and he says, We gotta go! He just took us down to the court. I was a dominant player in Games 2 through 6, and we got over the hump finally. Geni requires JavaScript! In 1985, before we left (L.A. after Game 5), I told the dudes only take one set of clothes. Buss turned Lakers games into experiences. Some might wonder if his death will bring radical changes to the ownership of the team, but according to his family, that's not very likely. He has put the Lakers right up there with the New York Yankees as the top brands in sports. He always treated me very well. We were up 3-1, and I remember about 2-to-3 hours before tip, I called him and said, Where are you, why are you not coming to Orlando? He said, Im not going to make it, you have to hold down the fort if we win, you have to accept the trophy. I said, Why cant someone else do it. He said, No, youre an owner, Im having you do it. I said, Well, OK do you have any advice? He said, Oh youll do great, dont worry, and he hung up the phone. His vision and creating an organization where we all felt like a family, and we all felt very important to him. And then 25 years later, to be able to celebrate at a different stage in my life with him again (2010). Many Los Angeles Lakers fans mourned the passing of the team's primary owner, Jerry Buss, on Monday. She surprised us doing a great job running the Forum. My dad just figured hed last another 10 years and that Joey and Jesse would start taking over the basketball side and Jimmy would start retiring and that would be it. So I talked to the NBA, and that started the process of us putting the lighting in that we have now. The Lakers had literally won the championship a few minutes earlier, but my dad couldnt stop raving that I had 25 points, 16 rebounds and 5 blocks in my AAU game. Incredible. But I hadnt seen him yet. That team experienced dynastic characteristics. Luckily that first year the players, in spite of my lack of experience, we won the championship and the rest is history. He understood that I needed that, and I would have been lost out here in this big city. With the Lakers, it was one man. It would be decades later, at age 34, when Jerry made his first million. When Jerry West left, the transition was very natural now, I will say that when Jerry retired, it was a little bit weird. Now, after a public legal fight that split the siblings, Johnny is even more ready to move on. Pat did a great job good basketball mind, and he had the work ethic to achieve that. I know youre going to shoot straight. He would listen to Jerry (West), Phil but then hed get the confirmation from me. I know you may not believe that, but trust me, we do. In 2013, after Jerry Buss passed away, all six Buss siblings were given an equal shareholding in the LA Lakers franchise. "When you think New York, you think Yankees. He was big on that. He was doing it because it was truly his passion. Dr. Buss, many nights after the games where hed come down to the locker room after everybody cleared out. Id never been in a Porsche before. Sports ownership. He had it all memorized in his head. I didnt get a phone call, or any kind of notification that, Well, Jerrys leaving, Mitch, and Im hiring you. I remember Jerry West retiring, and me saying, OK, whos the GM going to be? I think somebody asked me to reach out to Dr. Buss, and Dr. Buss said, Well Mitch, of course you are. I said, Thank you very much. I think he assumed it, but of course I didnt assume it. Im not saying that Jerry was the opposite, but he was a lot more fun than I think Jack was. Laker Girls. 43 years later, the combined purchase of both teams would be a fraction of the Lakers' current . And there were always all these hours spent talking basketball, and him trying to prep me for a bigger role. There was something about both of us. At the time, they only had a dial up internet connection, and a lot of data needed to be presented to my dad from the front office, so theyd use the fax machine. All these companies want to do business with the Lakers? Before that we had the (NBA) Draft, and we traded Vlade Divac, and we got back a player that frankly I thought was the best player in the Draft (Kobe Bryant). So I played in San Antonio for about 4.5 months and had no idea the Lakers were interested in me. Johnny never fully dove into his familys sports holdings, but he stuck around while his father lived. One story showed how appreciative he was for the work that he did, and for playing hard for the city of Los Angeles. He called Jerry, and it was done. Who Is Jerry Buss Mom & Dad? Theres a picture I have in my office where guys are grabbing his shoulders, throwing champagne on him, Im messing his hair up. I thought we had a great professional relationship, and over the years I got to know him and be friends with him. I remember his comments in the locker room, you can look it up, about removing a certain sentence in the English language. But once we acquired Shaq and Kobe, we started beating them more often than they were beating us. EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Jerry Buss' children intend on carrying out their father's succession plan for the Los Angeles Lakers following the iconic owner's death Monday. Born in Salt Lake City, Buss was raised by his divorced mother, Jessie. If everyone took as much care and time to plan for the end of their lives, there would likely be much less fighting among family members when it came time to administer their estates. Dr. Buss was there, and Earvins family was there, and it was just very special. [7] On February 14, 2013, it was revealed that Buss had been battling cancer since 2012. There was a time in the early 1980s when Dr. Buss would ask me, Whos going to be the most improved team in the league this year by the greatest number of games. Hed say, Well bet a dinner on this. I said, OK, Ill bet with you. So each year, wed both pick a team, and I won for three straight years. He was an incredibly brilliant person, but he had great heart and caring for the people around him. He was just really conscious of people around him and respected people that worked for him. That was so special. I knew he wanted to win, and I think what I was doing while I was there with the team that he had put together, he was satisfied with. He really was. Dr. Buss calls down there, and he says, Coop did you get your thing. I said, What are you talking about? Dr. Buss had given me a brand new Mercedes * with six miles on it for me winning Defensive Player of the Year. Thats probably the most Ive ever seen him animated. And Id just played in a rec league game maybe a week prior. In the late 1980s, we were living in Encinitas, California, and my father was home with a family friend, and they needed to go watch the Lakers game against Boston, so they locked themselves up in his bedroom. She was predeceased by : her husband Gerald Buss; her sons, Phil Buss and Chris Buss; her parents, Ehme Busboom and Jennie Busboom (Ideus); her siblings, Rosie Miller and Gerald Busboom; her siblings-in-law, Barbara Wrightsman (Don) and Robert Schoen; and her parents-in-law, Herman and Alvina Buss. He was also able to snag the Kings hockey team, the Inglewood Forum, and the 13,000-acre Raljon Ranch in the Sierra Nevada mountains from businessman Jack Kent Cooke. When he bought the team, there were literally two prices: the downstairs and the upstairs. We actually ended up making an offer, and then taking the offer off the table, because it still was not acceptable. [3] He was also the co-owner of a real estate investment company called Mariani-Buss Associates with his long-time business partner Frank Mariani. That was it. Even today, when they talk on ESPN, Greatest Owners in Sport History come on man, thats crazy! Under the ownership of the Buss family, the franchise won 10 championships with Jerry leading the pack and one with his daughter, Jeanie Buss. Everybody that we asked to participate agreed to be interviewed, and everybody gives the experience that they had because the fans know about what took place on the court, Jeanie said to The Athletic. James Jim Hatten Buss was born on November 9, 1959, and is the second eldest son of Jerry Buss. I miss him a lot. Magic was way ahead of the game, and now Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and some of these guys have been (following in those footsteps) in business. However, that changes in the season finale as Buss wishes to bring more family members into the new family business. But in February Johnny and his brother Jim proposed a board of directors that did not include their sister. I wouldnt ever want to try that. It became a happening. Every championship, wed go celebrate away from everybody. Youd pick up three of them, and it was the same trade tweaked multiple times. Then he wanted to work out for us one more time, so Michael Cooper, whod been retired for a year or two, we asked him to come out and participate. Because when the Lakers were playing, the men got the stage and the platform. Hed ask me a lot of questions about how we played, what I thought and so forth. It was a father/son environment. She became the Lakers governor in 2014 after her father's death and is now the representative of the team on the NBA board of governors. Dr. Buss saw the Lakers becoming something, more of an entertainment value than just a sports value, and the league has adopted, to a large degree, that same mentality. Really low key and very friendly. He was an incredibly visionary. Buss said that. Thats the affirmation you really want. I couldnt be more thankful for all the parties involved in that trade, because it really changed my career here in the NBA, and gave me a second life. He took great pride in having a holiday party and distributing holiday gifts to the corporate clients and all of his close circle, and hed painstakingly, himself, go through everything to pick everything that was meaningful that he thought people would really love. Recently he has become a father figure to Demel's. Just showed up and watched. Would you like to offer Betty Jean Busss loved ones a condolence message? And then Id go home. Id run into him in Los Angeles at various places and said hello. In 2002, when the WNBA was restructured to give its teams individual owners, Buss took ownership of the Sparks. I think thats important in this day and age, when people are talking about dance teams, but he really saw it as these talented dancers deserve an audience, and now every team in the NBA has a dance team. He was the first to see this league as the entertainment value that it is. It was a tough year, a tough day. He really showed that. Its very hard to achieve that level of success. All that was because my dad sat me down and said he thought Kobe was going to be a real good player. It was really his love, his heart. We were big into collecting basketball cards growing up. So that was one of the things I noticed about him. We were just talking friend to friend. He left the organization in good hands Jeanie is a great owner, too. He was thinking of Kobe. If there was a possibility of me getting totally out of the Lakers, then I was open to it.. When he said that on the podium at the Forum, we were just trying to celebrate the previous title, but he knew what he was doing. Veteran guys. So its strange to have a guy whos your mentor, father figure and best friend all rolled into one And then when Jeanie called me (to share the news that he had passed away (one of the) toughest days in my life. Obviously, Kobe was able to do that with the help of the franchise. So when you talk about him not being a person who would yell or be a tyrant or throw things to motivate, he was a teacher, and he knew how to motivate people. With Dr. Buss in particular, I had surgery on my left wrist after my rookie year. I said, Were trying to repeat, and I know you love winning championships, and a key piece of that is Lamar Odom.
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