On Wednesday, ESPN reporter Baxter Holmes published an in-depth insider article on how the Buss family sold the Lakers for $10 billion to Mark Walter in 2025. News of the sale was shocking when it first broke and remains so today, even months after the sale was finalized. Holmes’s wide-ranging piece details the process behind the decision to sell and the conflict between the Buss siblings at the center of it all.
The ESPN report also includes some very interesting tidbits on how Jeanie Buss, previously the controlling owner and CEO of the franchise, felt about LeBron James’s tenure in Los Angeles. The generational superstar chose to join the Lakers in free agency back in 2018 and won a championship in 2020. By the time the team sold, Buss had begun to “turn on” James, Holmes reports.
