Despite reportedly selling the team to Mark Walter, Jeanie Buss is expected to remain the Lakers governor for the foreseeable future.
In a year of shocking Lakers news, Wednesday might have taken the cake. Out of nowhere, news broke that the Buss family would be selling their stake in the franchise to Mark Walter.
The move will bring an end to the family being the majority stakeholder in the franchise that began in the 1970s. However, it appears will not bring an end to their direct involvement with the team.
After the news broke, Shams Charania of ESPN reported that Buss would remain governor of the franchise. Ramona Shelburne added more details about Buss remaining charge.
This will be different than Cuban and the Mavericks sale. This is guaranteed, and has always been part of the set up since Walter brought the minority stake in 2021 and got first right of refusal. They’ve built a strong relationship over the last decade. https://t.co/u72bVUHw9k
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) June 18, 2025
The obvious comparison, as Shelburne made, would be with Mark Cuban and the Dallas Mavs. However, along with the points made by Shelburne, there are other reasons this could play out differently.
For one, Cuban was expected to keep a role running the basketball operations side of things. And with Cuban, that would be a far more hands-on approach than most.
With Buss, that won’t be as much the case. While she certainly has a say in big basketball decisions, Buss isn’t nearly as hands-on as Cuban was.
For two, Walter is someone who prefers to be in the background. Our piece diving into who Walter is and his background discusses this even more, but Walter is a very private man who rarely talks to reporters and prefers not to be a front-facing type of owner.
It’s probably a mutual agreement that works for all parties where Buss continues to be involved with the franchise she’s worked nearly her entire life with and Walter gets to remain in the background.
Now, things could change just like they did with Cuban and the Mavericks. Some other questions would come up, too, like how does Buss running the team with someone else’s money work? Perhaps her position will be more ceremonial than anything else.
For all the criticisms that have come Buss’ way in the years, few of them have had to do with her willingness to talk about her position. She’ll appear on podcasts, radio shows, TV interviews and all the sorts…all things that Walter has no interest in.
Ultimately, this is one of those things that’ll have to play out for us to know how things really work. It’s a very fascinating bit of a wild, wild story.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.