Tag: Jeanie Buss

What LeBron James said to Jeanie Buss and Linda Rambis in viral video

LeBron James went viral on social media when he sat in between Lakers president Jeanie Buss and executive Linda Rambis on Friday.

Friday, March 8, was International Women’s Day, an unofficial holiday meant to celebrate the achievements of women across the globe in many different areas.

That evening, the Los Angeles Lakers, who are one of just a handful of major pro sports teams owned by a woman, hosted the Milwaukee Bucks. LeBron James sat out due to ankle soreness, but without him, the Lakers managed to overcome a late deficit to win 123-122 behind D’Angelo Russell’s 44 points and his barrage of clutch baskets.

During the contest, James was seen sitting in between Lakers controlling owner and president Jeanie Buss and executive director of special projects Linda Rambis. A video of the three went viral on social media, and it turns out James was complimenting the two on being “two of the most powerful women in sports,” as he put it (h/t Lakers Daily).

James returned to action on Sunday against the Minnesota Timberwolves, and he dropped 29 points, nine assists and eight rebounds. Anthony Davis put forth a historic game with 27 points, 25 rebounds, five assists, seven steals and three blocked shots as Los Angeles won again, this time by 11 points.

LeBron sitting with Jeanie Buss and Linda Rambis during a Lakers timeout led to so many jokes

What was LeBron talking about during this hangout with the Lakers owner?

LeBron James didn’t play in Friday’s Los Angeles Lakers win over the Milwaukee Bucks due to ankle soreness, but the spotlight was still on him thanks to photos and videos on X (formerly Twitter).

During a timeout, he walked over to hang out with team owner Jeanie Buss and Linda Rambis, who works in the front office (and is married to Kurt Rambis). Videos show them joking around and laughing, which led to a lot of jokes online, including a whole bunch of talk about how the Lakers should fire embattled head coach Darvin Ham.

Here’s a roundup of some we found:

Jeanie Buss on how Lakers’ 2023 playoff run led to the return of their core

Owner Jeanie Buss says after the Lakers reached the 2023 Western Conference Finals, bringing back their core made sense.

During the 2021 and 2022 offseasons, there was a great deal of roster turnover for the Los Angeles Lakers, leading to fans complaining that executive Rob Pelinka and owner Jeanie Buss had essentially dismantled the team that won the 2020 NBA championship.

Los Angeles failed to reach the play-in tournament during the 2021-22 season after trading Kyle Kuzma, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Montrezl Harrell for Russell Westbrook, not re-signing Alex Caruso and adding several free agents who were over the hill. About a year ago, it looked like it was headed toward the same fate.

But then came multiple midseason trades that transformed the roster and the organization. All of a sudden, the Lakers were considered championship contenders, and despite having little time to jell with their new supporting cast, they reached the Western Conference finals.

Although they got swept there by the eventual world champion Denver Nuggets, they decided to maintain the core that got them there, despite some fans wanting them to again go after a third star. Buss told Dan Woike and Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times in a recent interview that such a decision was an easy one (h/t Lakers Nation).

“It absolutely did,” said Buss regarding whether that run influenced such a decision. “When you think about where we started the season, 2-10, 2-11, and at that point, you kind of feel like are we ever gonna be able to dig our way out of it? So the idea that we got to the trade deadline, the All-Star Game, and the momentum started to go in a direction that hey, now we see a team that’s kind of coming together. Then they started making a run for the play-in and we’re gonna make the play-in and then we win that game and then we start winning rounds in the playoffs. You just get swept away. And it is a familiar feeling that we haven’t had in a long time, but as Laker fans know, that’s what we’re used to as Laker fans is going late into the season, into May and hopefully into June. I didn’t want it to end. Certainly we came up on a Denver team that was headed their way to a championship and so it was tough to lose to them but it was kind of nice to knock off the sitting champions when we beat the Golden State Warriors. So when we headed into the offseason, conversation around the office was let’s just stay on this roll, let’s bring this team back and build on it and see what we can do.”

Although this season’s Lakers are just 7-6 right now, their potential is clear, and they’re still building chemistry after having only three months together last spring. After being saddled with an old and undersized roster a year or two ago, they now have a young and athletic roster that has plenty of depth and length, especially in the backcourt and at the wing position.

Jeanie Buss: It wouldn’t surprise me if LeBron James played another five years

Lakers owner Jeanie Buss says she can see LeBron James continuing to play in the NBA for quite some time, even though he is 38 years of age.

At the age of 38, LeBron James may not be winning the greatest of all-time debate, but he has been winning the longevity debate.

He averaged 28.9 points, 8.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists a game while shooting 50% from the field last season. The year prior he put up 30.3 points a game, which was the second-highest scoring average of his career. As long as the right foot injury that hampered him late last season is fully healed, another year of elite or near-elite play seems likely.

James has become the greatest late-30s player in NBA history, and he is chasing the longevity of legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady, who won two Super Bowl championships in his 40s.

While talking to Sports Central LA, Lakers owner Jeanie Buss said she could see James playing five more seasons.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if LeBron (James) played another five years. We’ve seen him do things in the last couple seasons that defy anything we’d seen before. But that’s his decision.”

James is under contract for two more seasons, including the 2023-24 campaign. He can opt out of that deal and become a free agent at the conclusion of this season.

Jeanie Buss said she got death threats after Lakers’ poor start last season

Lakers owner Jeanie Buss made a stunning admission about the dark times she went through when her team struggled to start last season.

Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss is a congenial and engaging woman who presided over an NBA championship team as recently as 2020. But afterward, the team went through some dark times, and some fans scorched her with criticism as a result.

Some felt she was too obsessed with going after a third star to put around LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The 2021 trade for Russell Westbrook was clearly a disaster, and Buss got lots of criticism for that ill-fated move.

She has also been criticized for her hire and support of general manager Rob Pelinka, who had no prior front office experience when he came on board in 2017.

But both Buss and Pelinka rebounded in terms of public opinion when the Lakers made a couple of trades prior to last season’s trade deadline that turned everything around. They turned Westbrook, four little-used no-impact players and limited draft capital into Rui Hachimura, D’Angelo Russell and Jarred Vanderbilt, and all of a sudden, L.A. was a title contender again.

Buss admitted to The Athletic that prior to those life-saving trades, she was receiving death threats.

The Lakers lost their first five games and 10 of their first 12 last season, and their offense was absolutely abysmal at the time. According to analytics geeks, they had only a 0.3% chance of making the playoffs.

Not only did they make the playoffs, they reached the Western Conference Finals, and they’re now one of the favorites to win another world championship this coming season.

An 18th NBA title for the Lakers next summer would make Buss an extremely happy woman.

Stephen A. Smith: Rob Pelinka would’ve been fired if not for midseason trades

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith says Lakers executive Rob Pelinka would’ve been gone if he hadn’t saved the team with two midseason trades.

Early last season, the Los Angeles Lakers seemed stuck in a fast-moving river without a paddle. They were saddled with an unbalanced roster that lacked frontcourt depth. It also lacked legitimate scoring help for LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

But in late January, they traded for forward Rui Hachimura, a legitimate scoring threat, while giving up very little. Days later, they dealt the controversial Russell Westbrook for guard D’Angelo Russell and defensive standout Jarred Vanderbilt.

Hachmura, Russell and Vanderbilt have all received contract extensions this summer to remain in Los Angeles.

ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith said during an episode of “First Take” that had those trades not taken place, Lakers executive Rob Pelinka would’ve been fired by owner Jeanie Buss (h/t Lakers Daily).

“I’m telling you what I know,” Smith said. “If that trading deadline hadn’t happened when you acquired D’Angelo Russell and Vanderbilt – you got Hachimura before that – before you made the deal for them or what have you, Rob Pelinka would have been out.

“He’d have been done. I’m telling you – Jeanie Buss was gonna pull the plug. Rob Pelinka has done an outstanding job 
 since that time.”

Prior to the team’s midseason trades, many fans were calling for Pelinka to be axed, especially after he traded for Westbrook in 2021 and failed to re-sign cult favorite Alex Caruso. Now, the general manager has earned kudos from fans and pundits alike. He remade the Lakers into a legitimate championship contender that has plenty of youth around James and Davis.

Jeanie Buss likes her portrayal by Hadley Robinson in ‘Winning Time’

Even though many former Lakers dislike the portrayal of the Showtime-era teams in “Winning Time,” Jeanie Buss likes how she was portrayed.

The HBO series “Winning Time,” which is a fictionalized account of the Showtime-era Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s, came to a premature end on Sunday with its Season 2 finale.

That final episode showed the Lakers taking on their rivals, the Boston Celtics, in the 1984 NBA Finals and losing in seven games after choking in a couple of contests as a result of being unable to deal with Boston’s roughhouse tactics. It likely left fans wanting a lot more, especially since L.A.’s greatest triumphs, and the peak of the Showtime era, came after the 1984 finals.

But current Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, the daughter of then-owner Dr. Jerry Buss, liked the way she was portrayed in the show by Hadley Robinson. She admitted as much during “The Winning Time Podcast” (h/t Lakers Nation).

“I mean, it’s humbling, very humbling and I get a kick out of people who say, ‘she’s not even blonde!’ I’m like, ‘neither am I!’ You have to compare her (Robinson) to Jeanie in the ’80s as opposed to Jeanie today. But, I think she did a terrific job, I think that people who are interested are understanding how I got to be where I am today. Because being the first woman in the NBA to win a championship, maybe there are some people who never heard my name before. Well if you want to understand what my background and how I evolved into where I am today, you get my early history and what my dad saw in me that made him feel confident that he could put the team in my control and that there would be no promises, because even Dr. Buss made mistakes along the way. He knew what I would bring to the job and what he instilled in me and that’s why I am here today.”

The series finale ended with some foreshadowing of the younger Buss eventually inheriting the franchise and continuing its winning tradition. She did exactly that in real life when the Lakers won the world championship in 2020 over the Miami Heat, and they could very well get her another ring this coming season.

Jeanie Buss says John C. Reilly is ‘absolutely breathtaking’ as her father in HBO’s Winning Time

Dr. Jerry Buss apparently loved John C. Reilly in the movie version of Chicago.

With just one episode left in the second season of Winning Time on HBO, fans are seeing a slightly different reception this time around.

The show was widely criticized for inaccuracies during its first season by some of the real-life individuals (including Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson) portrayed in the show.

Although the Lakers originally said they had no comment about the show and were not supporting this project, we’ve seen a slight change of tune in the second season.

One very important person depicted in the show who is not critical of this season is Lakers owner Jeanie Buss (played by Hadley Robinson).

RELATED: See the cast of HBO’s Winning Time compared to their real-life counterparts

During Jeanie’s recent appearance on the official podcast of the show, she spoke about one of her interactions with John C. Reilly — who portrays her late father, Dr. Jerry Buss.

She even told Variety she thought Reilly deserved an Emmy nomination for his work on the show.

“John C. Reilly is absolutely breathtaking as my dad,” she said. “He’s absolutely fabulous.”

Jeanie said that she first met Reilly when he was attending a Lakers game. She decided to introduce herself to him because she knew that he was going to play her father in the show.

RELATED: HBO’s Winning Time is a delicate dance of intention and improv, not unlike the 1980s Lakers

At first, according to Jeanie, the actor seemed nervous that he was going to get kicked out of the game.

Instead, however, she told him a heartwarming story about a moment she shared with her father when they went to the movies, one of their shared passions, and saw Chicago (2002) in theaters.

“He was really good … [he is] somebody that can be so funny [and] can play such a tragic character,” she said.

Jeanie said that her father likely would not have had the same disappointment that others portrayed in the show like West and Abdul-Jabbar felt.

“I think he’d be really honored that you were playing him,” she continued.

This is not the first time that Jeanie has praised Reilly’s portrayal of her father. She had similar comments last month during an interview on AM 570 LA Sports.

“I know some people are like, ‘I can’t believe you’re watching that show!’ I said, ‘You know what? I really miss my dad so much. It’s kind of nice to see him.'”

Jeanie said that the costume department of Winning Time tried to get in touch with her father’s old tailor.

While the tailor had since passed away, his son had since taken over the business. Now, whenever she watches the show, it even looks like she is watching her dad.

“The wardrobe that he wears — that is what was making me crazy. Those were outfits that my dad actually wore.”