Sometimes life can get so weird that it almost feels like a comedy. That exact thought occurred to Jeanie Buss as her own brothers were trying to get her fired.
Buss is the president of the Los Angeles Lakers, and her life is parodied in the new Netflix comedy Running Point, starring Kate Hudson.
Before his death in 2013, Jeanie's father, Jerry Buss, owned the Lakers.
"I was 17, 18 years old, just doing whatever my dad asked me to," Jeanie Buss told Morning Edition host A Martínez. "I was fascinated by the business, and I shadowed him. Wherever he needed to make an appearance, if he couldn't go, he would send me as his substitute. And he saw that I loved it, so he just started grooming me from that age to be in the position that I'm in now."
Jerry put Jeanie in charge of the business side of things — and her brother, Jim, in charge of player personnel.
Then the team started losing — a lot.
The tale of how Jeanie Buss fought off a coup by her own brothers and assumed control of the team is the basis of Running Point.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
ON BEING NAMED VP OF BASKETBALL OPERATIONS IN 1999 — WITH HER BROTHER, JIM, BECOMING VP OF PLAYER PERSONNEL IN 2005
Jeanie Buss: When you are on the business side of a team, you have obligations to your partners, meaning your banks, your sponsors, your fans. You have to be held accountable for the product that you've sold them on, that you are expected to deliver. What was happening with my brother and the general manager was that they had made the decision that — once Kobe [Bryant] was retired — they were going to let the team fall all the way down to the bottom and collect draft picks.
Well, [our father] never ran the team that way. He didn't want to do a rebuild. What I saw was our fan base beginning to erode, losing faith.
My brother and I were butting heads on that. I kept saying, 'I can't raise ticket prices if we're not winning.' And we just went season after season after season. And I'm like, I've lost patience with this. I had to make the very tough decision to let my brother go.
My dad explained it to me very well: he put me ultimately in charge. And he told me, 'Jeanie, you have the hammer and I expect you to use it.' Meaning if things aren't going well with the team, I expect you to step in.
Within a season, we attracted the biggest free agent there was, LeBron James, to come and play for the Lakers in 2018.
A Martínez: Your father passed away in 2013, and that's when you became president. And in 2017, that's when you fired your brother [Jim]. Then he and your older brother, Johnny, tried to have you removed. You fought back and got lifetime operational control of the Lakers.
Considering that you said that your father basically said, here's the hammer – I always wondered what [your father] Dr. Buss would have thought of all that.
Jeanie Buss: He put me in charge and he knew what I would do. He asked me to do something, which was to protect the Lakers. And I did it.
I'm on good terms now with my older brothers, but they were doing what they thought was right. If they had won and were able to take me out of my position, it would have put the Lakers in chaos. We probably would have been forced to sell the team because we would have been completely dysfunctional without having a controlling voice in all ownership matters.
I knew it wasn't that going to court gave me the power; I always had the power. It's just they didn't understand it. I think they were surprised. I think my dad didn't explain it to them well, because they would have complained to him and made the last few years of his life miserable.
ON BEING ONE OF THE ONLY WOMEN TO RUN AN NBA TEAM
Jeanie Buss: The pressure is enormous in terms of becoming a role model and breaking through. That wasn't ever my intention in doing the job that I do, but I felt an enormous pressure not to fail. And, you know, feeling that there was probably a lot of people that wanted to see me fail, just because I'm a woman in this business.
I think in some ways it was easier to be a woman. I never intimidated anybody, so people didn't have their guard up when I was around. So I think people probably told me more things than they should.
But, you know, once we won a championship, I think that kind of went out the window. Now I'm competition.
ON GETTING THROUGH THE TOUGH TIMES
Jeanie Buss: I had this great time in my life where I was with Phil Jackson, the legendary NBA coach.
And there was a period when my brother was still running basketball that they were maybe going to bring Phil back for a third time because Kobe was frustrated. And instead they called Phil at midnight, woke us up and said they had hired Mike D'Antoni as the coach, which was really difficult for me to hear because it was just the cruelest thing they could do, you know?
So I encouraged Phil to look for another job, and he ended up taking the New York Knicks job. And literally the NBA made Phil and I sign a letter that said we would not speak about basketball because people felt in our positions it was a conflict of interest. I don't think they make brothers who are running two different teams sign a letter like that.
A Martínez: Because [at the time this is happening] you and Phil Jackson are a couple. You work in basketball; he's working in basketball. So when you go to dinner, what are you supposed to talk about?
Jeanie Buss: Well, it drove a wedge in our relationship. I had come to depend on Phil's counsel. Now I can't talk to Phil. So I leaned on Kobe a lot. Kobe was somebody that was always there for me. Phil had said, 'When I go to New York, you can always talk to Magic, but Kobe will always be there for you, Jeanie. He believes in you.'
ON QUIETLY PULLING OFF THE TRADE OF THE YEAR – ACQUIRING LUKA DONČIĆ FROM THE DALLAS MAVERICKS FOR ANTHONY DAVIS
Jeanie Buss: You know, I learned from my dad — and I point to when the Lakers traded for Pau Gasol — people hadn't heard about it. Gregg Popovich in San Antonio and Mark Cuban in Dallas threw a fit that we ended up with Pau. They never got a chance to bid on him or probably talk Memphis out of trading him to us.
You realize in our business that a lot of the rumors are planted by people in the industry who are trying to curry favor with the media. There's kind of this 'write good things about me as general manager and I'll feed you my inside information. Then we both win.'
In this particular case, I felt that if anybody heard about the trade through a rumor that there would be many parties trying to undermine it. When Pau Gasol came from Memphis to L.A., we won two championships because of it.
And then there was the famous Chris Paul trade that was vetoed by the commissioner, that people feel somehow the Lakers have an unfair advantage. But that is not true.
We gave up a lot to get Luka Dončić. We're happy we have him. We have lost the last three years in a row to the Denver Nuggets in the playoffs, and we really didn't have anything that was going to look different going into the playoffs again. Anthony Davis was complaining about where he was being played and he wasn't happy. So I think this was a positive for both teams. They got what they were looking for; we got what we were looking for. And I didn't realize it was going to be international news like it was, but that's the power of the Laker brand and its ability to draw big names who want to write their own chapter in Lakers history.
ON KATE HUDSON PLAYING A CHARACTER BASED ON HER
Jeanie Buss: She is as big a star as you can get, but back in the day, there was one point in the 90's when I was president of the Great Western Forum; I learned how to run the venue for five years before I was moved over to the Laker job. And Kate would come with her parents to the L.A. Kings hockey games.
A Martínez: Her parents are Goldie Hawn and (who she considers her father) Kurt Russell.
Jeanie Buss: Right. And Kate's like 16, 17 years old. She would stay with me and she would shadow me. I would take her to the box office. I showed her the ropes behind the scenes. She was a very smart girl, curious. She loved being around the heartbeat of the entertainment.
And so the idea that she is now playing a character [based on me], I knew she would nail it because she understood what it's like, the craziness behind the scenes. People, I think, will really enjoy her performance.
A Martínez: It's almost like she's been preparing to play the Jeanie Buss role all her life.
Jeanie Buss: Exactly.
A Martínez: How does that feel? To have these representations of you?
Jeanie Buss: I mean, it isn't me. But this is more 'me' than what people see every day about me — the humor in it, the crazy stuff that happens.
It's very relatable. The majority of businesses in this country are family-owned businesses. And everybody has a family. If you're in business with them, these are the kind of things that happen.
But at the end of the day, what brings you together is the team or the business, and you want to build something successful. It's just figuring out how to not step on each other's toes and try to coexist. And laugh. You have to laugh.
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