Jeanie Buss has a new filing in Los Angeles Superior Court, and the lines everyone is quoting are the loud ones. Per USA TODAY Sports, which obtained the filing, her lawyers accuse her five siblings of a “cloak and dagger” campaign, a “manipulative plot,” and a “false flag operation,” and say they “secretly pursued unlawful action behind Jeanie’s back” while feeding “petty grievances” to ESPN’s Shams Charania.
That is the part that will travel. Her best argument is buried lower in the same filing, and it is pure paperwork: nobody has given the trust notice of a tag-along, and Josh Kushner and Bob Iger have not made an offer for the trust’s shares, per her lawyers. ESPN’s report from Friday night says the main deal still wasn’t signed. That makes the boring argument the live one, and it also puts a clock on it.
What changed last week
Two things happened last week, two days apart.
First, Ramona Shelburne reported Friday that Mark Walter and Kushner have settled every remaining term of the sale, still at a $12.5 billion valuation. The two met in person Thursday at Walter’s home in Florida, and the formal agreement is expected to be signed soon. Per Shelburne’s sources, Kushner told Walter the full purchase price is already raised. After signing, the NBA reviews the financing and ownership structure, which she noted generally takes some time.
Second, Jeanie’s new filing landed. CBS Sports says it was filed Wednesday. Per USA TODAY Sports, it responds to the siblings’ tag-along argument from their Oct. 7 opposition, which called her petition “legally and factually baseless.” As CBS lays out, she wants two siblings removed as co-trustees and held in contempt, Jim, Johnny and Jesse held liable for helping breach the 2017 court order that made her the controlling owner, and her legal costs covered. The hearing is still set for Dec. 8.
Why the paperwork matters more than the insults
The siblings’ whole route to selling runs through the tag-along provision from Walter’s 2025 purchase. In their reading, that clause lets the family trust sell its remaining 17.82% alongside Walter, and ESPN reported on Oct. 7 that the trust is set to collect about $2.2 billion through it.
Jeanie’s side has attacked that route since August. Shelburne reported Aug. 26 that the petition said Joey Buss signed his vote to sell one day before ESPN reported Walter’s agreement with Kushner and Iger, and that Walter had not officially sent notice of the deal, so the tag-along rights did not yet apply. The new filing pushes the same idea further. Per USA TODAY Sports, her attorneys argue the tag-along covers less than all of the trust’s shares, that no notice of it was ever given, and that no offer for the trust’s shares from Kushner and Iger exists.
Read that next to Friday’s report and the problem for Jeanie is obvious. No notice and no offer is a strong argument on Oct. 28, with the deal unsigned. My read is that it gets weaker once Walter and Kushner sign, because a signed deal is what lets Walter send the notice her lawyers say is missing, and I would expect the siblings to push for exactly that. The “false flag” language will be just as colorful in December. The timing argument has an expiration date, and Walter and Kushner are holding the pen.
I think her lawyers know that, which is why the filing leans on two points that don’t depend on what Walter signs: the 2017 order, and the claim that the tag-along covers less than all of the trust’s shares. If a judge reads the order as protecting her control, the notice fight hardly matters. If a judge reads it the way the siblings do, as leaving the beneficiaries free to end the trust, the rest of her filing is mostly volume.
The calendar looks tighter than I thought
When the siblings filed in October, I wrote that the calendar favored the sale, because ESPN expected a board of governors vote in November and the hearing had moved from Nov. 5 to Dec. 8 to fit the schedule of her lawyer, Adam Streisand. That still looks like the order of events. It looks less comfortable than it did. As of Friday the agreement was still waiting on signatures, and the league’s review only begins after that. A November vote leaves that review about a month, at most.
None of this means Jeanie stops the sale. Her petition goes after the family’s 17.8% rather than Walter’s sale of control, and with that stake goes her seat: USA TODAY notes that NBA rules require a governor to hold at least 15%, so if the trust sells, she loses the job.
ESPN reported on Oct. 7 that she made a side agreement with Walter in October 2025 keeping her on as controlling owner and director for five years, pending NBA approval. The siblings have used that deal against her, arguing she is protecting her own position.
What it means for the team tonight
The Lakers host Toronto tonight at Crypto.com Arena, and none of this changes how the Lakers defend Scottie Barnes, the question I worked through in our Barnes preview. Nobody in a court filing is checking into the game.
What changes is who signs off on the next big contract, and every one of those decisions runs through the roster and cap sheet in the full 2026-27 Lakers depth chart. A Kushner and Iger group with Jeanie as governor is a different conversation from one without her.
What I would watch
- The signature. The day Walter and Kushner sign, the “no notice, no offer” argument starts running out of road. Shelburne’s report says it should come soon.
- Whether notice goes to the trust. If it does, expect the siblings to say the defect is cured. If it doesn’t, or if it covers less than all of the trust’s shares, Jeanie’s lawyers keep their best fight.
- The 2017 order on Dec. 8. Along with the partial-shares point, it is the part of her case a signature can’t touch.
The insults got the headlines this weekend. The paperwork decides it, and the paperwork is about to change.