In 1979, Jerry Buss walked into the Forum having just purchased the Lakers, Kings, and the arena itself for $67.5 million. One of his first moves wasn’t a trade or a coaching hire. It was making sure the front-office secretary knew every player by name, every birthday, every personal detail that mattered. That secretary became the emotional center of the organization for two decades. Now, with the franchise sold twice in fourteen months for a combined price nearing $23 billion, one Lakers legend says that version of the organization is gone for good.

On Byron Scott’s Fast Break podcast, Scott didn’t hold back on how far the Lakers’ culture has drifted from the Buss era.

“This has gone so corporate to me, it’s unbelievable,” Scott said. “Dr. Jerry Buss was all about family in his organization. That family built strong ties because you wanted everybody to do well. This is about corporate takeovers now … I don’t think it’s as important to owners nowadays to build the type of relationship Dr. Buss built with the players, with the employees, with everybody.”

“Mary Lou, who was the secretary for the Lakers back in the day, was like everybody’s mom. You could go to her and talk about everything, and she’s going to tell you the straight-up truth. You don’t have that type of connection in these organizations like we did back then.”

Mark Walter bought the Buss family’s controlling stake at a $10 billion valuation just fourteen months ago. And that sale is now being followed by a reported $12.5 billion purchase from Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, all while Jeanie Buss fights in court to preserve her role as governor against her own siblings.

The Lakers’ ownership situation is currently tangled in a family legal fight. Jeanie Buss is suing her siblings – Jim, Janie, Johnny, Joey, and Jesse Buss – in Los Angeles Superior Court, accusing co-trustees Janie and Joey of “brazenly, knowingly and intentionally” violating both a 2017 court order and the terms of their father Jerry Buss’s family trust.

That 2017 order was originally meant to settle a prior sibling power struggle. It guaranteed that Jeanie would remain the family’s controlling voice atop the Lakers.

Her petition seeks to block her siblings from selling the family’s remaining 17.8% stake in the team to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner without her approval, to have Janie and Joey removed as co-trustees, and to hold her siblings in contempt of court.

NBA rules require a controlling owner to hold at least 15% equity. So if her siblings succeed in selling that stake out from under her, Jeanie would fall below the threshold and lose her governor title entirely.

The first substantive court hearing, originally set for Nov. 5, has already been pushed back to Dec. 8. This means the Lakers will open the 2026-27 season with this dispute, and the question of who legally controls the NBA’s most historically valuable franchise is still unresolved.