The second sale of the Los Angeles Lakers in just about a year has predictably come with a fair share of drama. And at the center of the latest chapter is ESPN’s Shams Charania.
On Monday, Charania reported that the Buss family voted to sell its remaining 17.8% stake in the Lakers to incoming majority owners Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, who are set to purchase the team from current majority owner Mark Walter for $12.5 billion. The Buss family sold a majority stake in the Lakers to Walter last year, though Jeanie Buss stayed on as the team’s governor. Per NBA rules, a team governor must own at least 15% of a franchise.
The news that the Buss family voted to sell its remaining stake meant that Jeanie Buss’ time as governor was coming to an end. But apparently, Jeanie Buss does not view the vote as legitimate. Through her lawyer, she said any vote by the family is void because it conflicts with the Buss family trust that ensures Jeanie Buss remains the controlling owner of the Lakers.
Charania’s report initially indicated that the six Buss siblings all voted in favor of selling the remaining 17.8% stake to the Kushner/Iger group. That report has since been changed to say that five of the six Buss siblings voted in favor.
Buss’ lawyer called out Charania’s false report in a statement released on Monday.
“As you know, this afternoon, Shams Charania of ESPN falsely reported that the six Buss siblings voted to sell the 17.8% ownership stake in the Lakers to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, and that my client, Jeanie Buss, is ‘out’ as controlling owner,” the statement read. “This is just the latest instance of a years-long pattern whereby Joey and Jesse Buss leak false, defamatory and pernicious ‘information’ to Mr. Charania for the malicious purpose of doing harm to the Los Angeles Lakers so long as Dr. Buss’s chosen successor, Jeanie Buss, carries out her father’s wishes.”
ESPN did not issue a formal correction on Charania’s report, instead choosing to update the information in the article simply. In a statement to Semafor’s Max Tani, an ESPN spokesperson said, “The story evolved as we continued reporting, and we didn’t believe a correction was warranted.”
Given that there’s clearly a dispute among the Buss siblings as to whether the vote to sell their remaining stake in the Lakers is legitimate, originally reporting that the vote was unanimous, and that Jeanie Buss would be losing her role as team governor, is a pretty significant error for ESPN’s top NBA insider to make.
Even if it’s true that the sale will go through — Charania reports that the vote needed just four of six siblings to pass — and thus Buss will no longer serve as governor of the Lakers, failing to detail her opposition misrepresented the story in a meaningful way.
It’s unclear whether the accusation by Buss’ lawyer of “a years-long pattern” of Charania reporting “false” information leaked by two of Jeanie’s siblings has any merit. But at the very least, Charania initially made a mistake in Monday’s report and then quietly corrected it, without ESPN acknowledging the error upfront the way most publications of record would.
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