Inside the Lakers’ New Era With Dan Woike

Welcome to the Miss Match. I'm Chris Vernon. It's joining me today's every week from the ranger.com is Dave Jacoby. Jacoby! Something happened on the group chat this week that has never happened before. We've been doing this show together for, I don't know, 17 years, two years, one year. I don't know. But this is our first guest. It is our first guest. Wait, really? Ever. Ever. Dan Wojiki, you are the first guest. What do you guys think? We're a thrupple. We're a thrupple now. That's why we don't have guests. I'm such a narcissist. People are like, do you want to just want to talk to some people for 40 minutes? I'm like, yeah, I'll do it for free. And Dan Wojiki would be athletic joining us. You've been covering LA sports for the better part of 20 years. Jesus. All gets this supposed to be a downtime, Dan. This has not been a downtime. No, it's been exhilarating, but also infuriating at the same time because like this was supposed to be quiet. It was supposed to be vacation last week before kids go back to school. Like, I make a mistake as a parent. And I'm on like year four of doing this now, where we booked the summer camp schedule, like in like April, when I am missing them very badly, because I've been traveling all in this season. And I tell myself, like, oh, well, like, we don't need to go that week. Like, I miss them. I love them. I need to spend time with them. Like, I've got it. Like, I've got it this week. I can do this week. And I can do that week. And invariably, some crazy shit happens every summer, in which my kids have no camp. And so they've been home all week. I covered the part of the sale. The sale I did from home, they were here. It was a nightmare. And then the bus family element of this, I wrote my story from inside a indoor playground. All right, let's get to the first part, the sale. Yeah, were you stunned when that story came down that Mark Walter is selling the Lakers. So I had gotten a couple of like, I have all emoji texts in the week prior from some people. And I actually was on vacation. I was in Chicago visiting family. And was like following the Walter story, but like, not digging it, right? Like it was kind of like, okay, like, this feels like it's going to be a thing over the next, you know, two to three months, because like, these types of things tend to move slowly. And it's like, we should monitor this. We like, right? Like, we're going to have time. We're going to dig in our monitor. So in that sense, when I have, I was like, oh, my God, like, this is fast. This happened really fast. Like, it was easy to understand why and all of that stuff pretty quickly. But yeah, no, I was surprised. Like, I would love to sit here and tell you like, oh, yeah, you know, I had the story too. I was surprised outside of the eyeball emoji bar. I was not surprised about the second part of this, which is, you know, the bus family and the bus family trust trying to sell the shares and Jeannie not wanting to sell. Like, I'm not surprised with that at all. When it comes down, right? And the guy sells the team. I know that in one of your articles, you wrote that people close to Walter say, it's very easy. He bought it for 10 billion. He got off for 12.5 billion. He got called on Friday. They had the things sealed up by the weekend. Like, there is no big conspiracy here, folks. He got a bought something for 12 billion or a 10 billion. And then he got he sold it for 12.5 billion. That's what it is. Then there's obviously all of this extra stuff going around and people going, okay, yeah, I got that he made the money. But you don't buy a team to sell it a year later. You also put in there. You also put in your article. He didn't have any interest in selling the team. I feel like I'm on trial right now. I think the way this sort of happened right is like, obviously, he needed the money. He didn't need the money. I think that's become pretty clear. The initial sort of spiel from the people around him was like, this is just a great business transaction by a great businessman. That's how I would want people to talk about me if I paid them, I think, like, you know, that's how I would want to be remembered too. And I think, you know, as things kind of move quickly throughout that day, right? Like, I mean, it just like it became clear that, you know, they needed this needed to happen quickly. You're right. The thing you said, Chris, that I think is smart and is that NBA franchises aren't like, they're not investments. Or they typically haven't been viewed as investments in that way, right? Like, you know, sometimes like a super rich person will buy like a piece of art or, you know, forever, right? Like we were talking a little bit about baseball. It's like the Honest Wagner baseball card. You don't buy the Honest Wagner baseball card to like hold it in your hand and look at it and play with it and stuff like that. You buy it, put it in the safe and then to sell it in nine months again for a profit or whatever the time is done online. Prosports franchises for like the ultra rich is always been more about like, hey, this is like a 30 person club. Try to get in when you can't because no one like like people don't like to get out, right? And I think what's unique about this situation is just the speed, right? And which all of this has happened and all of this will happen. You know, I'm under the impression this transition is supposed to be pretty quickly. It's supposed to happen pretty quickly from, you know, the Walter group to the Eiger Kushner group. That's going to be fast. The sale itself was fast. Like, I mean, I feel very confidently saying that like they called on Friday, you know, and said like, yeah, you need the money. Like you want to sell. We're interested. Like that was like, you know, that's what Josh Kushner did. You know, I think Eiger, Eiger spoke to him on Sunday. I think he said, like anything that happens on a whim, like a $12.5 billion deal that just kind of happens over the course of a weekend. You know, like, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy. But if they've had it, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you got? What do you got? What do you got? Let's do it. Okay. I used to be a colleague. I'll call it with Mr. Eiger. And I'm familiar with the Kushner history and their father. Do they have enough money to put together 12.5 billion dollars or are there some sovereign funds involved as well? I, you know, I'm in the stage of my reporting. We're like, I haven't like dug like deep into their like financial backing yet because I'm still like, I'm spooling like what's happening in the other end of it. I'll just say this. They were very involved in the bidding for Las Vegas, like very involved, right. And that was a process that was going to be very expensive. So they have a group. They have a group. They have a group. They have financial backing and stuff like that. Now, you know, what I think is interesting financially, too, right, is like, this is going to be boring. So like, stop me when. So the reason the bus family, the trust, right, is able to sell without negotiation is because of a clause that they had in the initial sale agreement, which is called like tag along rights or tag in rights or whatever. Which basically says that, hey, if Mark Walter sells, you can come on in, right, like, like you have to, you have to take into the deal. They decided to tag in and, you know, if you're the, the buyer, you know, let's say you had a $9 billion budget. It's not $9 billion anymore. Now you're, now you're buying, you know, but 91% of the team instead of the, you know, I'm going to do digital math. What 72 or whatever it was or 73% that maybe you thought you were getting originally. So, but I think look again, I think in these types of deals, right, like, I mean, this sounds insane. But like, what's a billion dollars? Like people like, like, you know what I mean, there are people that want to invest there are people that want to get into this. You know, and I think like these companies and these people, like, like the ultra ultra rich, like have access to stuff that, like, quite frankly, like none of us do. How many people off the record say to you, he sold this team because he screwed, because he's got to get money because the SEC and the feds are after him. I mean, a lot, everybody. That's what everybody thinks that that's not the side to get out of the Lakers business. Yeah, no, I mean, I think it was like, I think right, like it was, I'm in too many businesses. I have to trim here. I mean, like, you know, it's not just the Lakers, right? Like, I mean, he's out of shells. You know, we're exploring ways to get out of shells. You know, I mean, he has other properties. But you reported he ain't getting out of the Dodgers or the Sparks, huh? So, I reported that the original translation had nothing to do with the Sparks. He may get out of the Sparks. Still, you know, the sense is like, again, the position has been like, you know, we don't have to get out of the Dodger business. We are in the Dodger business. Like, we want to stay in the Dodger business. But, you know, it's hard to know how much these walls are closing in right now. It's just hard to know. It feels like they are, right? But it also like I think that the the messaging I've gotten when I've talked to people around that group is that, you know, they they're confident that with these transactions, they'll be able to satisfy the needs that they need to satisfy with investigators and loan operators. And if and things like that, and they'll be able to kind of go along on their merit or what? Did people like him as an owner? I mean, he's only there for a year, but like, what was the first impression? And did he like turn the whole thing over? I mean, inevitably new ownership comes in. They hire and fire people and people the way you do things becomes different than the way it's always been because it had always been family owned for so many years. So everybody kind of knew the way the buses did business and the way they did things. And so they had a new job. Chris, they made like TV shows about it too. So you can always find ways to see how the buses do this. Right. But they brought in a new guy and he was only there for a year. So like, we don't have, you know, he didn't make some kind of massive splash like the guy in Portland is or Ishmael who's got his own, you know, so there were things that were happening around the Lakers that were changing the Lakers in ways that would have made them that would have made them unrecognizable. Right. And they're not. So one, like as far as like, do people like Mark Walter or not? People didn't know Mark. Which of the Backstreet Boys concert with Luca first birthday? Like he was part of that group. You know, and like Mark, like Mark isn't like a day-to-day, like, I've got an office in the building. I'm there. I was trying to run down if he had ever been inside the practice facility. You know what I mean? You would come to games every once in a while. Like I would sit not every game. Like again, not like Genie. So here are the ways that they were doing. One of the things they did is they changed their team presence. Tim Harris has been their team business president for a very long time. Steps down. Steps down. And very quickly the hire Lon Rosen. He's from Magic Johnson's agent. He's in a lot of these TV shows as a as a pundit or a speaker. Lon had been working for the Dodgers and a cheap marketing officer or something like that. He comes in and immediately like the mandate seems to be revenue. We need to create more revenue. Okay. Like the one of the weird things about the Lakers is that like maybe to the frustrations of others like revenue was never like the like the full on like North Star. Right? Like I mean a lot of it was like being special and being the Lakers. So like okay, this is little stuff dumb stuff but things that happen. They added a row of seats around the courts around the court. Right? A lot. Most Indianers have one or two maybe even three rows of courtside seating. Laker courtside seating. Very again exclusive. One row. Not anymore. You know, that was money that was left on the table. They thought we can do that. You know, the media seats at games have always been pretty good there. Lower level in the corner. Sold them. The kicked half the media upstairs during the playoffs. They sold those seats. You know, sold. They were, I mean, we don't know where we're sitting or I haven't seen where we're sitting this year. We're not sitting in the same spot. They sold our seats too. Right? So we're moving. It's happening. I had heard like dumb little rumors like, oh, like they might start charging for scouts at game. It was a place where people ate for free. That's like not going to be a place where people eat for free. None of this is to say that like like it's oh my god. Look at there. The Dodgers now. But it was like they were like they were trying to make money. It was like in a way that in the past, I mean, the Lakers girls have it. Yeah. Yeah. The Lakers girls have a Jersey pet sponsor. I like the. What is it? What? Who is it? It's some company. Like it's like some just look at your screen. Look at your screen. I will tell you one of those. Yeah. It's like a maker. I don't know. There's three years ago. It was dumplings frozen dumplings. They had to go. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a pretty good. We would get once a year. We would get BB go night. And they're good. Like we get them. Yeah. We get them at Costco. They're nice. Um, like the girls Jersey sponsor. Oh, I heard they sold the Lakers. It's the first ever presenting sponsor of the Lakers girls. Now. So this is very true of a lot of family owned businesses, right? It's a, it's a passion. But then the, then somebody's going to buy a business owner wants to run it like an actual business. That, I mean, that doesn't, I don't, I don't think he's, you know, it doesn't necessarily make him a bad guy. That's pretty much however, you guys had it really good with the buses. Just kind of, this is kind of the way we've always done. That, I mean, that had its downsides too. Yeah. Like, I mean, I think, um, I think in this case, right? So that was like the business side of it, right? Um, I would say that it was also, you know, I mean, part of that met layoffs and the layoffs were rough. Like they were bad. There were two rounds of layoffs, um, talk about revenue and revenue driving. Um, a thing that they did was they moved their g-league team out of their practice facility and El Segundo, um, which for people who don't know, it was like by the ocean, like, you know, right by the airport. Yeah, great spot to be. They moved it to Palm Springs in Coachella Valley. Also pretty, don't get me wrong, but like two and a half hours away, three hours away, you know, um, by car and it could be much more than that, depending when you go. Um, the pitch was, oh, well, we needed the space in the practice facility. Um, you know, we wanted our players to play in front of bigger crowds, different things like that. It, I mean, I mean, it's bullshit. Like that's mostly bullshit. Like, I think like, because if you care about winning basketball games, you cared about winning basketball games, having your g-league team in your building helps you win basketball games. It gets better g-league players to sign with your team. Right. So like, like last year, there was probably, I mean, one game, I would say during the season that they do not win if Drew Timmy does not play for the Lakers, right? Drew Timmy signed on a two-way contract. Drew Timmy gets that two-way contract because he's playing with, um, he's playing with the South Bay Lakers or whatever like that. LeBron James has sciatica. Um, he needs to practice with the g-league team, right? See, go to Palm Springs to do that? No. Well, maybe not. I'll have to play golf. He'd be at PJ West like the entire time. But otherwise, like, no, like he's not. That's not a thing. But if it's in El Segundo, it's in the practice facility. It's where all the trainers and everything is. Yeah, let's roll the ball out there. So he practices with the g-league team. Drew Timmy kills. He like cooks, right? Like real pro does the right things, knows where to be, stuff like that. Lakers two-way up. Um, he helps them win regular season games. I asked Drew Timmy after all of this stuff is over. I was like, if you were in Palm Springs, would you have signed, would you have picked a sign with the Lakers as a g-league player? And you said, absolutely. So, so Dan, um, you know, I follow you and bit of fan of yours, your career. Um, you don't even know to say my name, Dave. I had to ask multiple times. I've never been able to say it confidently, which is why I called you, Dan. But I want to say this is your dad brooks. Toby. Is that your third baseman for the clean Indians, when I was a child, I believe, yeah, George Coby is my uncle, one of the hogs. But, um, I want to ask you this, I don't really care about the financial stuff and like the billionaires, like the department of justice. I care about basketball. If I'm Luca Donchic, and I'm looking at this sort of like revamped roster, which is, you know, you can feel how you feel about their offseason. I think it was fine. But like, sure, how does this affect you if you are Luca Donchic, who frankly fell in the Lakers laps. And now you're on another ownership, like it does, does this jeopardize the relationship between the best player on the team and the team itself? Truthfully, um, I think, I mean, the way it affects him today, very little. The way it can affect him over the next 16 months, tremendous. Right? Ownership is one of the great advantages in sports, particularly in salad capitals, right? You have good ownership, you can build a good infrastructure. It allows you to do things and then you can invest in biomedics, you can invest in scouting. You know, and that was, I was going to say, to go be like, part of this was like, the Lakers were moving in a more analytics direction, right? Now, does that mean like cutting edge or does that mean dare more? I actually have their program. It's called get all white guys. Yeah, it's not it's not analytics, man. All right. Okay. Okay. So, welcome to the Misfestion. So, oh, yeah, they're really into it. They're like the numbers. Like, they're like the numbers. Yes. Maybe it's a market in efficiency, guys. Maybe they're moneyballing this. They think the, uh, no, I think like and by the way, it's going to be a long year or that. I'm already ready for it. It's just going to be a long year or that. Um, I think, you know, where it affects him, right? Is that like, you know, if you make changes, this new group comes in, decides they want to do things a different way. Um, the previous group was like, say what you will about the Lakers. Um, always very good at star catering, like always very good at it, um, always. And maybe this is a group that doesn't want to do that. Um, you know, we'll see. I would think, but you don't know until you see it. You know, you don't know what they're gonna invest in. You don't know where that stuff is. Do I ultimately end of the day think ownership in this way has a direct one-to-one relationship with players? I don't. And I remember during the Donald Sterling stuff, I was covering the Clippers, Chris. And I remember talking to Blake Griffin and Golden State like after the tape came out. And we were talking about, you know, I was pretty girl in my career. So when I was maybe like, man, does it just like disappoint you? Like, this is your boss, this is your owner. He's like, you think I think about Donald Sterling? Like when I'm like, lacing him up. Yeah, yeah, that's it. I cover David Leeds, right? Like, it's like, that's just not. I just don't think it's that big of a thing. It's nice when they're nice. Like, I think it mattered to players that Jeannie treated their family well. Well, she did. I think it matters to people that like, you know, like that, like they again, they treated people in that circle like family. I think it was really good for the organization and made it a good place to play basketball. If this new group doesn't, but the talent is awesome, I think it'll be all right. Do you think it would have effect? Do you think Mark Walter, buying the team? If that never happened, do you think LeBron James is still a Laker? No, no, I think that ran its course. I think, I mean, LeBron's like, air, run with the Lakers is going to be like, fascinating to see like, like fast forward 10 years. Like, what do we think about LeBron as a Laker? How much do we think about LeBron as a Laker? The reality is, like, when it comes to like, consecutive time spent in a place, that'll be the place he was planted longest. You know, eight years with the Lakers, there's longer than he played anywhere else in a consecutive stretch. And we will think of that third. Yeah, and it's just like, it was a significant amount of time, right? And I think, like, why has he not stayed other places longer? I think he's kind of itchy in general about this stuff. Like, he likes change. He likes, like, he needs to be like stimulated and poked and like, move it on and move it on. And like, that's why like, you know, the roster's turnover and different things like that. I just think that's who he is and how he is. I think that was part of it. You know, I think that from like the Lakers perspective, like, it's really hard to like be Lucas team if LeBron James is on it. I think is really hard. And if you're like committed to a future, it's hard to move in that direction. If you don't know when you're going to be able to because LeBron is still too good, right? It's like, it'd be one thing you can point at the Lakers and say like, man, they should have gotten in on this LeBron stuff like at the minimum. I can tell you they never called afterwards. Like, it's not like they tried to rebuild the bridge. It's not, that wasn't a thing. You know, like they knew it was over. Everybody knew it was over. Yeah. So it was done. It was done. I think that, you know, head LeBron Ben like, you know, I've got 82 more games in. And then I'm done forever. I will give you these 82 games. Maybe, but the problem is, he doesn't know if it's only 82 games. It might be 200 games. Like, he's still that good. He's still that interested, right? He's still that excited about basketball. Can I give you guys my LeBron theory with his why he's on the Sixers? Why he picked the Sixers and not anywhere else? No, you can't actually know, you can't know. Now, if you guys see the movie Free Solo, ever about the mountain climber, the guy who like climbed the building on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah. Who like feels no joy unless he like has the risk of death? Like that line, like it just doesn't like he's not interested enough. I think after 23 years of the NBA, going back to home for like a nice home coming to safe, going to Miami, not interesting enough. Like, go to go to the lion's death. Like go play with all these crazy personalities. Like go, go do something where the highs will be the absolute highest. The lows will be the absolute lowest and I will feel alive. Oh, Dan, I'm so glad you're here because I don't respect Fernos basketball opinions. Yeah. This Sixers team, I believe in my entire life and career, has the lowest floor in the highest ceiling of any preseason roster I've ever seen in my entire life. They could win the next two reasons to win top or 80 games. And I have no idea where we're going to end up. So I just want to know your opinion. Like, where do you think this team performs in? Like, are they like the eighth seat of the one seat of the Eastern comments? Because I can easily make a case for both. I don't think they're the ones. And I mean, they're like, they're like the three, right? I think like, I don't worry about like LeBron, like taking like a quote unquote, like complimentary on court role. Like, he chose this, right? He chose this for himself. You know, he wasn't like, he did it. And then they did the Jalen Brown trade. And then they, you know, add a Tyree's Maxi. He knows what he's walking into. And he knows, I believe, especially after watching him over the last 18 months around Luka, like eventually, like, he can bend his game in just about every direction. Still, right? Which is crazy. And I also think putting him in a position where he has to win you five possessions in crunch time instead of having to win you five minutes will be much better for him over the course of a season, too, right? And he'll be able to manage the season. Do all that other stuff. I mean, like, it's the questions though. The problem is like, add LeBron. Awesome. You add Jalen Brown. Awesome. So I like, like, is Jalen beat going to be healthy? Like, it just still feels like if he, and if he's not, are you good or can you be good? And the other thing is everybody always says, Oh, great players always figure it out. But there's still one ball. Somebody's got to backseat it. Somebody's got to move the ball. Like, these teams are all stars and role players, right? Everybody knows who is get the ball for the, you know, there's a pecking order. I believe in the C's teams. Yeah. And the fourth guy, like, and guys don't generally like the fourth guy in Jacobi, like the argument for them being aeth, right? Is that guys don't like going backwards, either, generally, right? Particularly when you're at a certain stage in your career, um, you know, Tyrese Maxey just had the best offensive season of his life in the NBA. So he's going to, he's going to be asked to do less, like, and that's going to be okay. As a Nick van, he is terrifying. Jalen, Jalen Brown, like, just got to do it all, like, and now he's going to have to do less is he is going to take two shots again? Yeah. Yeah. Like, I remember thinking about like, like, talking to, uh, it's not going to, uh, uh, veteran NBA person. Um, there's an old this hell, dude, Chris, no, but close, same generation. The, um, we were talking about if LeBron was going to Cleveland, like, who would, like, how would it work? Who would suffer the most? And we decided it was like Evan Moble, like, this would have been, like, hell for Evan Moble. Because Evan Moble's job on that team now would be to go play defense, like, a banshee all the time and like, not worry about offense, which is like, anytime that conversation has ever happened with a 25 year old player in the NBA, it's not gone well. It never goes well. When Boston added Kyrie Irving, um, I was still doing like some nationals over the late times. I remember I went there once and like, thought the vibe was like a little off. And I remember looking at the sets and it was like, Marcus Martin was shooting less. Jalen Brown was shooting less. Jason Tatum was shooting less. And all these guys were ascending in their career, right? They're 22, 23 years old and different things like that. And they're now all being asked to sacrifice at a time when they should be taking on more responsibility. And being in, like, it's just, it's, it's unnatural in the NBA. So in that sense, like, that's scary if you're the, that's scary. But I think like DJ Edgecomb is in year two, he's not in your five, right? Like, that's helpful in this. I think Tyree Smaxy is known the Braun through a clutch because of the day he entered the end. Like, that's helpful, right? I think that they all know where Jalen Brown, like he's been pretty vocal about his opinions about last season. That allows for people to kind of work with that too. He's saying team building experiment though, um, I did the, like, the most interesting team in the world. Well, let's see. We'll see what happens with the bronze. Let's rally back to his old team because I, this, we, we've gone entirely too long before we get into the succession, the succession angle, the succession angle of all of this. So the bus is, as you mentioned, they sell to Walter, right? But they've got their, whatever it is, 18%, and you have to own 15% in order to be a governor for the team. First of all, before, let me take a 20, what the, what is the governor? What does that entail when they, when they keep on saying, Genie brought is the governor. She couldn't have been the governor unless the bus has kept this amount. And now, you know, if they sell this amount, Genie bus will no longer be the governor. What is the governor? I'm smiling because I'm just hearing you, like, in your, like, Tennessee accent, trying to say it, like, governor, like, what is the governor making me happy? I mean, like, the boss, for like, of a better term, right? It's the person who goes to the board of governors and cast votes on behalf of the organization. The boss of who? Who does you, you know, like, you run the, I mean, like, you run the organization. Like, when you are, like, you're the most important, like, on paper, basketball executive in the organization. Now, but the only question. - You serve you? - No, not in the eyes of the NBA. Now, if you have it in writing, that you get to stay the governor for five years, like provided that, you know, this is how minority and majority ownership stuff like can get a little rocky. If you're in this way, this doesn't happen that often. Say Genie Bus doesn't want to vote. Like, let's say that maybe wants to abolish the salary, or they only want to play 60 games or whatever. Like, these are the types of things that the governor's in the league would vote on. - I love those ideas. - Yeah, like, like, okay. So like, governor Jacobi, you own 15% of the Lakers, governor Vernon hates these ideas, right? Like, you're the one who can actually cast the vote, right? Are you gonna listen to the guy who owns 70% of the team? Are you gonna do what you want? And if you don't do what you, like, if you have an in writing that you have your job for five years, which Genie hasn't read it from the Walter sale, you might just do what you want. So it's hers different, the reason, and I'm interested in you saying writing, because remember this happened with Cuban. - Yep. - Oh, Cuban's gonna get to stay on it. Then they get the sale done, and they say, all right, get outta here. And then-- - Lessons were orange. - And then when the Western Conference and he's not even in the camera shot. - Well, then it happened in Boston, right? - Lessons were orange. - No, no, no, no, no. Gross facts gonna run it. Don't worry. Like, there's gonna be a smooth transition, and then as soon as they bought the thing, they're like, yeah, you're outta here, right? - Yeah, we're not doing this. Yeah, 'cause it's messy. - Okay, so hers is in writing. - Yeah, and now he will remain it for five years, which is something Eiger said he would honor. - Okay, so can we get into the goofy probate law weird parts about the trust and how this works? Which is so, the team is not owned by Genie bus or by Jesse bus or Johnny bus or Genie bus. Specifically, it's owned by trust, right? That operates as sort of an inanimate object that has six beneficiaries of the trust, which are six of his children. And they're each one-sixth of a beneficiary of this trust. The trust is three trustees. Generally speaking, the job of the trustee is to do what the vote says, right? On, because they had these tag along rights, there was like, they had been kind of himming and hawing about like getting out anyways. I mean, the vote to Walter was six-o, you know, on paper. In functionality was four-two, right? Joey and Jesse bus did not want to sell to Mark Walter. They wanted to stay owners of the Lakers. - But they went on with that. - Genie did, Genie did want to sell. She wanted to sell. Yeah, she was the swing vote, right? It was like, the general sort of idea about the West Family was that the older siblings, Genie bus, Genie bus, Genie bus, Genie bus, all wanted to sell always, right? And that Jeanne is a governor, didn't want to sell. The younger boys wanted to eventually run the team, didn't want to sell. You know, there were intricacies like in the trust like about like a last man standing clause, which would always like push down. Like, it's not as simple as this, but like the idea was that like it starts at six, well then the trust moves to five and then it moves to four and then it moves to three. So like whoever's alive the longest has the biggest piece of the trust, right? - Okay. - Do they? - Go ahead, go ahead. - I was just gonna say, but like, I think in this case, right? Like like, you know, Genie then when she does this deal with Mark Walter, you know, by keeping above 15%, and because it's a family trust, she's able to act as the governor, even though she doesn't own all 15%. Now, if she were to buy my understanding at least of this right now, if she were to go tomorrow, let's say the bus family decides they're all wanna sell that Genie wants to buy 15% so she can still be governor, right? And by the way, she was like, cool. It's gotta be 15% of her money. Like she can't, it can't be like I own 5% and then I've got a sovereign, well fun putting in some stuff and I've got like some stuff like that, like it won't work that way. So, I mean, really, it seems like to me, right now. - Did she got that kind of money? I don't know. - Oh, okay. - No. - What is her case? Like, she's fighting against this, but like, you know, there's so, there's two sides every argument. What is, what are her lawyers and what is her stance? 'Cause I don't really see it. - Yeah. - So in 2017, after she fired Jim Bus as GM, it hired Rob Plink and Matt Johnson, the brothers, like kind of like, quote unquote, like hatched a plan, right? Like, this is the way it's been sort of reported through the years. You might want to use the word coup or other things. To get Jeannie moved off the board of directors sort of forced her out of power, right? Jeannie went to court and those powers were like, like, God, she won, right? She won in court. And in those court, like court documents, there's wording in there that talks about how the trust may must like always, like always for her lifetime. Like, she is a governor, she's a trustee. Like, that is her, their job is like, she is the controlling owner as long as she's alive, right? There are other wording in there though, like, about like reasonable circumstances changing and different things like that. Like, this is where the argument will be made in court, which will be like, how much of this 2017 ruling that Jeannie seems to use as, you know, in the letter that her lawyer wrote to the siblings that really was written to everybody because we all got it. (laughing) - You know, it was like, they were there, they were in there. - She's, she's, she's, she's, she's the world. - Yeah, they're in, I'm like, here you go, reporter is like, type of letter. - Right. - Everybody look, like, you know, in that letter, like, I mean, that's what's cited, right? Now, we'll see how this plays out. Like, again, like, this is all happening at a time, like running parallel with the fact that Walter seems to be on a timeline here to get a deal done. I will say, everybody, I keep talking, everybody, everybody, by and large, with like, very few exceptions. Most people believe that like, these two things can run their course simultaneously and everybody can feel satisfied to some degree, that even if this, the bus thing drags more than it needs to, that like, the primary part of the sale between Walter and Kushner and Eiger, you know, we need a better name for them. By the way, like, I'm just like, they need a group name or something. - Right. - The between the new group and the Walter group, that can, it seems like that's on track, right? Like, like, even regardless of all this stuff is on track. - Do the buses all hate each other or do they just disagree about business? - I mean, current, it's a little binary. I think that, like, you know, me, like, I got it, right? - You're not getting about business, currently. I mean, it seems like at every time they've all hated each other at some point. Joey and Jesse are very close. - They do not get together for holidays. - They're not having it, they're very united. Joey and Jesse, they just bought a piece of the San Diego Padres. They're a part of the Feliciano group. - Okay, so ironically enough, a Mark Walter rival team in the same division. - So Joey and Jesse, they're close. - Yeah, is Jeannie close with any of the, are there the five that voted against her? - I mean, like, I don't wanna speak specifically like now, but I mean, yeah, like I think at times, certainly like, I mean, you know, she's been close with Jeannie, she's been close with Jim, she's been close with Johnny. You know, I think that they've all worked for the Lakers and they've all, don't work there anymore. And she does. And there's been bad feelings about that through the years. I mean, I wanna, I wish I could come here guys and say, like, the succession thing is like lazy nonsense. Like, we gotta do better, you know, when we describe this stuff, but like, it's for real. - It's, it's pretty, it's, it's pretty spot on. Sometimes like the surface thing is the right thing. And like, yeah, it's a, it's a very complicated family dynamic. - So Dan, let's go back to basketball. Walker Kessler, how is he gonna fix this? This is ridiculous. This is one of the dumbest contests I've seen. Where is this, is Walker Kessler in the answer? Like that guy? Like that, back out, we're gonna take out LeBron James to bring in Colin Sexton to Walker Kessler. And now we're gonna be in danger. - So that's fine, that's fine. - The five Walker Kessler games last year didn't do it for you. - Is that, what are we doing? - And is that contract why Michael Mark Walter is selling? - It's sold to you, yes, no. - No, so I'll make the argument for this. All right. - Oh please. - All ears. - Yeah, okay. So again, we talked about Star Service. Like, look at how I just wanted to send. Like, you wanted to play with the best center like you get their hands on, right? The center market right now is in a really strange place where like the really, really high end guys are certainly weren't getable for the Lakers, right? And the low end group that was available, like we're never like needle movie enough to like invest assets by, right? Like, I'll give you a name that Laker fans talk about a lot, right? It was like Nick Clacks, all right? Oh, he's a lot there. He's a rim protector, he's like 210 pounds. Two, right? Like, like is that, that wasn't the guy they wanted. Like, there was one track that was like, go find me my Daniel Gafford, right? Like, you don't need to bring, I don't need an All Star. I don't need to like, like a lottery level talent. Like, I just need a guy who can jump and can protect the Ram and do that, right? That was like one thought process. The list of like Daniel Gafford-ish players in the NBA, like guys, I've done this since the Luka trade. It's just shorter than people realize. It's not a long way. - We got like, Ms. Robinson. And no, no, and it was and not the way that would have been planned. Yeah, was but even those guys got like the bad the bad injury guys, right? Like mit Robinson. Even Trump's. I'm an I'm a different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably, you know, um, Daniel Gaffer, Chris Lavry's rookie year loved it. Yeah, I haven't seen since. Hey, hey, you you can always trade two second round picks for Isaiah Stewart. Let's go. That actually would be a good fit to be honest with you. Not a bad, you know, like like he's me see was like a name that was kicked around. I mean, look, the Lakers, the Lakers, look, they, they, they called on Jared Allen. I don't know if they called, but like they were like, is Jared Allen available? Like, there just aren't that many guys out there. And at a certain point, you're like talking about like, okay, like do we want like y'all come fertile the place on it? Is that like, do we do it with Robert Williams? Is that like, you trust him? They tried the hundred eight. They did this last year. Yeah, right. And so they were like, we want a more permanent solution. Among the permanent solutions, like Walker, Kessler, they felt and Luke Adaches felt was the best, the best fit, right. The problem was he's a strict free agent, right? And um, to, to pry players loose and restrictive regions, he's expensive. And the Lakers, um, like, the cost of everything. That's a day. That's why they do. He's not a sorry player. It's just a scarcity. It's a part of scarcity in addition to pay. It's interesting. When you put it like that, I kind of get it, but like on the surface, I do not get it. Well, that's because he's made the most money of any non-all star center ever. Sure. And like, by the way, if he's not, if he's not like all star good or like, in that like sort of like, right, you know, one of the best shop lockers in the NBA shooting like 70% averaging, you know, 16 and 10 type of player, which he's like been that guy at times when he's been healthy. Like, you know, this is a guy who I think after his work year, right, was on the, was on team USA and the World Championships. That team finished like seventh, but like he was on that team. He would campaign three and a half million dollars. Yeah. That's really nice. We paid four million dollars. Like, love this guy. So, okay. So that's, that's the customer. Well, let's set him aside. Yeah. What about, so let's, let's argue the rest of this, right? I mentioned analytics. Um, Mahmoud Kalashvili, like, checks that box big time for a lot of teams. A lot of interest on him as an offensive player. Um, you know, you hear like Nas Reed comps, you know, is like a guy who can like really shoot the basketball of that size. Not a great defender, but can shoot, dribble, make good decisions. Um, and then, you know, I think with like Grimes was like a guy that JJ has talked about, you know, for years as a player, he's really like really believes in worked out with him over a summer once. And, and Sexton is like, I mean, Rob Plink has generally like small scoring guards. I always loved him. Yeah. And then on rat teams, his entire career, all of these guys to this degree. I think this, the, the reason for me, like, obviously covering the Lakers last year was like awesome. It was a lot of fun. There's been a ton of drama to these last two years. Basketball is, I think I'm most intrigued by like this team, because it's a version of Luca Laker fans having gottens, which is like if the Luca secret sauce, like more than anything else, is that like give him the rock and like let him elevate everyone around it. I went to Euro basket last summer for, and I watched him play, um, you know, with the Slovenian national team. And like you would see this, like, you know, no disrespect to a Slovenian national teammates, but like you would see like Greg or Horvat or something like that. All of a sudden, like, you know, like could the ball would pop to him and he's attacking the close up. Jacobi, I think the guys that they sign, not the other guys that they sign, all are like, like close out killers. Right? Like you put the ball, you know, to a close up that's flying at Quentin Grimes. Like Quentin Grimes can attack it and go make a really good decision and you're playing five on four or four on three. Um, the same is true for Austin, or he's the same is definitely true for Colin Sexton. He's probably not going to pass after he gets it, but like he's going to attack that close out and score the basketball. He's basically like worked his way up to being almost like a 50-40-90 guy offensively on very bad basketball teams. And I think that's the bad, right? And then the other part of the thing is that you look at the coaches and that this coaching step is one, you know, they've exceeded win-loss totals the last two years in terms of projections. They've had to piece together defenses with not good defensive players, you know, and they're going to have to do it again in some ways and like, you know, you think you think JJ's good, don't you? He's very. Yeah, he's very. I mean, you've covered a lot of bullets on the lakers. Well, he's coming. That's the argument for here's the argument against it. Walker, Cushion played five games. And they're all five. And if he doesn't, and if he doesn't, and if he doesn't play, and if he doesn't play, Kavan Lune's your starting set. I don't, I don't hate him. He played 22 games. Well, but that's, I don't know what the hell the pelicans were doing. That was stupid. I don't know why they signed him. I don't know why they signed Kavan Lune. That's a bad good dude. People like, I know, I mean, like, you know, they need a primary defense, right? A T-Style. Like, his turn himself. Good shooter can really guard the basketball. They've like, played like 20 games last year. Yeah. Like, and the other thing to not like about their summer is like, I mean, they executed a plan. They did it like, like, like, really, really fast. Like, this was like, you know, the hose was kinked. It unkinked. All the transactions, like, flew out. And like, they didn't get a chance to like, see the mark, right? Had they waited. Could they have gotten Peyton Watson at, at, at a discount? Is that something that could have been available to them? Possibly. You know, had they like, had that level of, you know, for, for thought, or flexibility? But I think they had a plan. They executed it. Um, it just so happened. That plan was a lot of white guys. But like, um, just so happened. But like, I think like that was, they like, they picked a lane. And, and I respect that, I respect the lane in the NBA. Well, they're built. I've never covered a good, yeah. I've never covered a good team that doesn't. Like, guys, there's one way to win right now today. There's one way. It needs to have a great player. Yeah. Yeah. You have a great player. This is a great example. No, that's far by the next. You have a great player, like a great player, like that Josh Hart. Right. We're talking about Mitchell up to the Bander Shammett. Yes. Um, no, but like, you have a, you have a, you have a player in Jalen Brunson. You build a roster that accentuates every one of his strengths and hides as many of his weaknesses as basketball. Cause like, we spent, we spent no week, we spent no time talking about him, meaning a six-foot guard playing defense in the playoffs. It did, because it didn't matter, because the team defense functions fine, because he's strong enough, and it functions fine. When you have the right players around him, it is totally fine. And the Lakers, they're not there, but the Lakers took steps this summer to putting the right type of players around Luca. If you were going to keep Luca down, judge. And by the way, the Lakers, they want to keep Luca down, judge. If you're going to keep him and you think he's that guy, this is your chance. This is the way you do it. You don't, there's no other way. Do you think it's a big deal that he's taking everybody over to Slovenia? Big deal. Um, no, but not a nothing thing. I think, um, again, being around, it was, it was really neat to be around him with his national team last year. Like, just to like kind of, I was over in Poland for like, like eight days, nine days. And, um, just like watching, like, these are guys that he's played with for a very, very long time. Like being around Luca day to day, like Luca is like pretty low maintenance. He really likes his teammates. Like, it's very like team, team, team. It's not really how it looks on the court always, but like it, it is like he does, like have genuine care for the people around him and knows, I think, for them to be good, they're going to have to like each other. They're going to have to trust each other. And I think, like, yeah, the fact that, you know, they all that he paid for them to get on a plane and go, um, everybody, but you know, Cameron Carr, who's like stuck in like rookie training, I think, you know, um, he's going to can't go. Um, yeah, I mean, the two ways in a few other things then before they have to go to Palm Springs. Did the Lakers do all of this crap over the course of the last week because they were tired of the clippers getting all of the, uh, drop in news about them. Yeah, right. Um, remember those 15 minutes on Monday, because I don't, um, like, like where that was like going to be the story of the week on Monday. Oh my god. And for like two hours. And then this happened for me. When you covered the clippers for a long time, and so now, like, that's not your every day beat, but like, I'm around and like, yeah, and they're, they're familiar. There are some familiar characters and all this. Look, I think, um, you know, the question to me always and all this stuff for, for real is like, like, obviously, like, people are speeding. And the clippers are the only team in the end. They're not the only team in the NBA that's speeding. Like, it just certainly looks like they were going very, very fast in a way that not everybody else is like, I spoke to a player, um, Hall of Famish level player. Chris, I'll tell you afterwards, you're, you're going to scoff that I said Hall of Famish. And, um, and, and he told me, he told me that it's like, you know, like, players like talk, right? Like around the league. Like, if someone's like getting like, if it was like common for people to get like $3 million or like scoreboard endorsement deals, I'm just like picking that number out there. I, I'm not reporting to jumbo tron. It's a deck trunks, they're very important technology. Yeah. Like, like, like, if that was like a common practice. This player told me that he thought he wouldn't know about it, right? That like that's just like the way that NBA players speak to each other about all sorts of stuff, right? So like this does seem to be like different now the level of you like I will say like every time I've talked to Clippers about this Like they have not been like oh well like we'll see what happens when the investigation comes up They have been like we have done nothing Like right like in a way like where they If if they're lying like they've had a practice Like the people that I talked to over there. You think they believe that sure now look now these just because they're not involved too You know like what I don't think like any great conspiracy doesn't have like 90 people involved in it Probably be a pretty small room But look I mean, we'll see what happens like I said I think the fact that one of the things we do know right was that Credible or or or not like we do know that the Clippers were not the only team that were asked Um about extra benefits in 2019 We know that other teams are asked and they were comfortable enough asking and the other teams were comfortable of saying no and not turning them Believing someone has committed a crime Knowing someone has committed a crime and proving someone has committed a crime three very different things You know, I mean, it's just like yeah, it's a very different things proving someone has committed crimes much more difficult than believing or knowing someone has committed a crime I always tell people like when I talk to young writers I feel like there's like three buckets of information. There's like what we hear what we know and what we can write And like moving things from moving everything from one bucket to the up to the next is like that's the job Like that's the challenge in the job is getting something from what you hear To what you know, I'm a really maker. I wrote something once about something I heard And I got yelled at by Lawrence Frank. I think I think I like and hindsight it sounds absurd But I'd like I had heard That they were interested in that he's young when he was on the And he got pissed He was very mad because they weren't interested that he's saying I was wrong. But I had heard it Like I didn't make it up. You know what I mean, but yeah, I like that young. I like that. I didn't do that. They should have been I liked it. We should be interested. Yeah. Yeah. That is by the way. Like like I like that is true. I was wrong Yeah, I still feel still like. Do you know how it's like it's like in that group that bucket for me? TrayLots. It's still a believer Oh, TrayLots. It's still a believer. Oh, trust me. I got a box of Marvin Bagley rookie cards if y'all want them So funny story. I think you guys are like this. There's like this clip. I've never told the story publicly So thankfully this will this will never come back to army. There's a clip of that it comes around every year when like Luca Like has like a 70 or 80 point game Whereas fan base talks like they like cut to like what people said about him in the pre-draft process, right? They they always go to this very specific clip of Colin coward talking about Luca What's not in that clip is that I'm sitting directly next to Colin And and it's not in this clip. It's it's absolutely true and he's repeating what you said or something. No, no, thankfully But count like it was like one of those like do you take eight do you take don't just do you take Tray young do you take I'm Marvin Bagley, right? And I like I said at the time I don't know Colin. I think like Marvin Bagley's just like an offense And I was right. There was no offensive genius in that draft Multiple episodes on ESPN. I was like Steph Curry is too small. He played it a small guy He will never make it in the NBA He will get eaten up on defense like I was anti-steff Curry before the draft My dad to this day I was on my the first TV as he was on the cup wonder was I used to do gym rooms like CBS Sports Show and Jim was great He's always been great to me would bring me down and we would talk about I like I was covering the Clippers But he was like, oh you like sports you can be on TV just like study it and like the thing is you have to have opinions about everything Like they don't just ask me Clippers basketball questions when I'm out there and there was one It was like really season NFL game between the Packers and the 49ers and they asked me who would have the better NFL career Colin Kaepernick, Karen Rogers and I wrote pretty hard for the wrong guy I like my head this day to this day was always like to remember on TV when you stay on Kaepernick would off Oh, yeah, he was like when you would say Colin Kaepernick was gonna be way way better than her and her out just because of his arm strength Do you remember that? We don't know what happens at the bus family holidays But we definitely know what happens at the Waikie family. Oh my gosh. Yeah, you don't get a fuck on that It's like freezing cold takes is like a real person and it's my father And he's that's amazing. He's got a dish towel over his shoulder as he's just doing dishes the entire time Well, I just do want to say Dan have been a fan of his for a long time. It's so nice to actually get to do some media with you And I want to thank you for your coverage and if you haven't followed all of his coverage of all of this stuff on the athletic and the New York Times Make sure you do and you are welcome to come back in the mismatch anytime Thanks so much for giving your time to us here today and Announcing that Colin Kaepernick will have a better career than error. That's right Marvin Bagley. Perfect Sigma Offensive Marvin Bagley is the Hall of Famous player that you were talking about earlier. I know that now I've got another one east coast for you. I was really really high on train-out waters like the five-and-three guy from LSU I had like what I thought was Rock salad scouting logic, which was like he's always been short So he knows it was not going to matter that they're calling out. He was short when he played in seventh grade This was like I thought it was like pretty salad I thought it was a pretty solid leap. I can't tell you I was so strong. I was like Steph Curry is going to amount to nothing. He won't even get a second contract. He can't cover anybody. He's so thin He's so short. He's so small people just like him because there was dad He was a Davidson like getting a nice tournament but like this guy's going to be nothing in the NBA And nothing is nothing matters. He's like the second best player of his generation Yeah, it's thankfully nothing matters anymore And we just run through these things and then we recycle them and they live for like 30 seconds Exactly. Well, thanks a bunch of coming on and I want to thank all our producers I want to thank Chris Vernon and we'll be back You