Jim Vs. Jeanie: The Sibling Rivalry That's Undermining The Los Angeles Lakers

Ok, quick quiz: name the starting center of the Los Angeles Lakers. Next, name the person running the team.

Got it? Good. Think about those names.

To quote some very nice country ladies, "There's your trouble."

The Lakers are a very proud organization. I know this because I've written lots—at this point, I don't even know how many—of books about the franchise. (Oh, come on now. Shameless self-promotion, to be sure, but a couple of them are actually pretty good.)

Anyway, it doesn't take a genius to see where this sentiment comes from. Since their formation right after World War II, the Lakers have won 18 pro basketball championships—17 in the National Basketball Association, and one in the old National League.

In those title seasons, the team's starting centers are as follows: George Mikan (six trophies); Wilt Chamberlain (one trophy); Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (five trophies); Shaquille O'Neal (three); and Pau Gasol (two). I've conducted interviews with all of them and all of their championship coaches, from John Kundla (who coached their first six title teams back in the 1940s and '50s) to Phil Jackson. Oh, and ditto for some of the Lakers' great general managers: Pete Newell, Bill Sharman and Jerry West, all icons of the game.

Anyway, here's the answer to question No. 1, at least for right now: Roy Hibbert.

And here's the answer to question two, also at least for right now: Jim Buss.

I point this out not to be mean. Hibbert is a serviceable professional, a recent defensive force. But no one has ever confused him with one of the legends on the above list.

The same goes for Jim Buss. He's reportedly a nice man who wants to succeed but has had no good luck so far. Low-key, often absentee, with absolutely no grounding in the game, but for years insistent on being the head of basketball operations for the Lakers—something his father, the late Dr. Jerry Buss, one of the great owners in American sports history, would never have even considered attempting.

Jim is locked in a fierce sibling rivalry with sister Jeanie Buss, the team president with much experience in the off-court stuff that makes the business side of the NBA hum: management, marketing and game operations. She, too, has no real grounding in basketball operations, and for the most part freely admits it.

How fierce is the rivalry? Well, Jeanie is the well-known girlfriend of New York Knicks executive and former Lakers coach Jackson. Not surprisingly, much of the sibling struggle has come over Jim's attempts at replacing Jackson.

When Jerry decided to let Jackson go after a tumultuous 2004 season, Jim jumped in and hired former Houston Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich. Jeanie was so angry—furious, in fact—at the move that her first meeting with Tomjanovich was a disaster, dramatically escalating the civil war within the franchise.

Tomjanovich, who won two titles as coach of a Rockets team led by dominant big man Hakeem Olajuwon, was recovering from cancer and had no real center to work with on the Lakers. He did not finish out his first season, and the franchise basically ate millions on his guaranteed contract.

Jackson was then hired back, and found success following Gasol's arrival in early 2008—even though the coach has a long record of driving internal strife. However, his presence appeared to chafe both Jerry and Jim Buss, right up to Jackson's retirement in 2011.

After that, things got truly dysfunctional.

Jim's choice to follow Jackson, Mike Brown, did not pan out. Jim and Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak then engaged Jackson about again returning to the franchise—but while he was contemplating their offer, they abruptly hired former Phoenix Suns and New York Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni, informing Jackson about the switch in a late-night phone call.

How hasty was the move? At the time, D'Antoni was coming out of knee replacement surgery and was so debilitated that he couldn't even make it to Los Angeles until several days after his hiring.

Perhaps Jim and Kupchak purposely pulled the rug on Jackson, and by extension, Jeanie. Perhaps they were simply clumsy. Either way, it was a terrible way to handle a sensitive, important matter. Jim later suggested that he made the decision based on the dying wish of his father, which only raised a critical question: How can Jim lead a franchise if he can't man up and take responsibility for decisions?

Predictably, Jeanie was so angry over the move that Kupchak told D'Antoni he wouldn't even bother to take him down to her office for an introduction. Think about it: Jeanie is the Lakers' team president. D'Antoni coached the Lakers for almost two full seasons. During that time, he never met Jeanie Buss—not beyond once sort of trying to acknowledge her in a restaurant.

How absurd.

Just about every family has sibling rivalry. But not every family owns the Lakers, and not every sibling rivalry holds an entire professional sports franchise—along with millions of adoring fans—hostage. Jim and Jeanie's tug-of-war probably began years ago when they fought over the television, the car keys, parental affection, or any other prize that gleamed in their eyes. It only intensified after their father died in 2013.

How crippling.

Basketball-wise, the D'Antoni hire was flawed from the start. D'Antoni is a genuinely good guy and a brilliant basketball mind, but mostly an avant-garde, up-tempo offensive maestro. An early proponent of the pace-and-space craze currently taking the NBA by storm, he's admittedly not all that interested in great post play—and that didn't mesh with the Lakers at the time, a team built around two strong post players in Gasol and Dwight Howard.

Howard, ostensibly the Lakers' next great center, ended up bolting Los Angeles after a single disappointing season. Gasol ended up deeply angry over the circumstances, and eventually bolted as well. D'Antoni resigned in 2015, and to replace him, the Buss children apparently compromised with the hiring of Byron Scott, a fave of both during his Showtime playing days.

More compromise: Jeanie and Jim have apparently agreed on a three-year timetable for Jim to turn around the plummeting fortunes of the franchise. If he can't manage a return to glory, he'll step down.

Problem is, it's a terrible agreement. A sham.

First, Jim should never have to step down from the franchise. He should have a place in the family business—let's say chairman of the Lakers. Meanwhile, Jeanie shouldn't have to pretend that she's rooting for Jim and the team to succeed, when she's really waiting for him to fail. That's toxic. Jeanie can be president. Jim can be chairman. Whatever floats their particular boats.

Just leave the rest of the team's players, employees and fans out of it.

Indeed, the most important job of the Buss children should be to hire a first-rate basketball executive to run the team. The basketball part of the business. If it's not Kupchak, make it someone who can work above and/or with Kupchak. Someone who can think long-term. Someone patient enough to restock the team's near-empty talent cupboard, who isn't operating under a three-years-or-else deadline.

Much has been made of the Lakers' failure to attract superstar free agents, a first for the franchise. Still, Los Angeles fans have great hopes for young players Julius Randle, who is back from a season-ending leg injury, Jordan Clarkson and first-round pick D'Angelo Russell. Their play on the Lakers' summer league team in Las Vegas had nice moments but little success, and met early dismissal.

That's not the end of the world. It just means that the team's future is very, very young, and needs and deserves incubation—time to grow and develop within a franchise that isn't all screwed up. The Buss children need to make peace, rule as adults—together—and leave the basketball, as their father did, to the people who really know it.

Jim Buss is supportive of the coaches he's hired and is genuinely eager to see the Lakers succeed. But he's an old horse trainer. A ball cap-wearing guy in a business that has nothing to do with ball caps. Jeanie wants to see the team win, too. But she's a suit, a businesswoman, not a talent evaluator or X's and O's specialist.

Here's the prescription for Jim and Jeanie: Take a deep breath. Squash your beefs. Hire a top basketball mind to make the expert decisions, rehire the scouting staff that Jim unceremoniously dumped when he took over, and give the organization a real chance to reclaim its former glory. Don't put the immense pressure of your mistakes on the shoulders of young and developing players, or any future free agents you're trying to court. Your team needs time and shrewd, patient reloading to be great again, as opposed to the current win-now countdown fueled by unresolved sibling rivalry.

The Lakers certainly should be owned by the Buss children. But ultimately, the franchise shouldn't be about them.