NBA Insider Believes Jeanie Buss Is Likely To Lose Legal Battle With Siblings Over Lakers Sale

NBA insider and attorney Nate Duncan says Jeanie Buss faces a massive uphill legal battle in her attempt to prevent her siblings from selling the Buss family’s remaining stake in the Los Angeles Lakers.

Appearing on Jovan Buha’s podcast, Duncan, who earned a law degree from the University of Arizona, broke down the family trust and explained why he thinks the documents favor Jeanie Buss’ siblings.

“There’s a certain way you could interpret that order. Now, I think if you went to that judge, judges generally don’t like it. They have a new judge in this case, so he’s going to be interpreting the old judge’s order, it sounds like. But usually judges don’t like it when you take an order—in this case, they stipulated, but the judge signed it—and kind of go too far with it or try to make it say something that it didn’t or that was never really addressed. “

“And so we haven’t talked about this yet necessarily, but that third part of why I think Jeanie should lose is that you have to look at every part of a document, right? If the only thing in the trust about selling or control or anything was this 11.10 that says Jeanie’s got to be essentially the governor, uh, during her lifetime, if that’s all that it said, yeah, I think she actually might have a pretty decent argument there. “

“But it’s well settled when you’re interpreting any kind of a document, including in California Probate Code, that you have to look at all of the relevant components of a document that could affect it. “And so there are two other, uh, sections, 2.4 and 9.5, that look at, when can you sell? And that’s the 60%—or, sorry, two-thirds of the living siblings, uh, which would be four out of six in this case, can vote to sell and to terminate the trust.”

“”So that’s a—there’s that clause, and then there’s another one that says that, uh, two out of the three trustees, uh, that’s the 9.5, uh, can—in some trusts it has to be all three have to agree—but two out of the three can agree for any action that the trust is taking.”

“And so, uh, in both those cases, uh, the siblings, you know, have followed those procedures and have voted to sell. So if you read all of those things in context, it really wouldn’t make sense that, oh, 2.4 and 9.5 say, here’s the procedure to sell, here’s how the trust votes, but then this 11.10 just basically makes those null and void if Jeanie Buss decides that, right? So that’s kind of what her interpretation is at this point, putting it very roughly.”

“And so if you look at not only what that order says, but then you actually read the trust document and you say, ‘All right, well, there’s all these other clauses too, and they followed this procedure.’ And not only, uh, is that what that says, but they followed that same procedure back in 2025 when they sold. “Then you have to say the only way this rationally all fits together is that, you know, they have this—this is the procedure to sell. And Jeanie Buss being the governor while they do own the team, it doesn’t allow her to stop that.”

“And if you do interpret it Jeanie’s way, you get to these absurd results where it’s like Jeanie would be breaching her fiduciary duty to herself because she said after five years she’s not going to be the owner anymore. “And so the idea that this trust exists solely to make Jeanie Buss the owner, like, no, that’s not the point of it. The point of it is to provide for the Buss children. And Jerry Buss provided a way for them to sell the team and for them all to enrich themselves and their heirs because the way it would work if they still held on to the team is that when somebody died, they basically—they and their heirs lose out on the team, essentially. “

“”And so I don’t—Jerry Buss, I don’t think, would have wanted that. Uh, that, you know, some of his six children would get a bunch and then a bunch of his heirs wouldn’t get anything. Like, that doesn’t really seem to make sense. So that’s why it was set up in this way.”

“Going back to your initial question, yeah, sorry, uh, of how she could win. Uh, yeah, I mean, maybe the court would say, no, actually, like, this 11.10 supersedes everything else, or no, this is actually what the order says. “I don’t read it that way. I don’t think that was ever litigated. It would really surprise me if that happened. But obviously, there have been many surprising legal results, like, you can know. “But, you know, for me personally, I would put it on the order of, like, 80 or 90%. Like, something crazy would have to happen level, uh, if this really, truly got litigated.”

The dispute is around the proposed sale of the family’s remaining 17.48% stake. But Jeanie has asked the Los Angeles Superior Court to block it. Jeanie’s argument rests heavily on a 2017 court order, which instructed the trust’s co-trustees to take proper action to ensure she remains the controlling Buss family owner.

But Duncan thinks that interpreting the order as effectively preventing a future sale goes a little too far.

According to Duncan, the key is reading the entire trust instead of just focusing solely on Section 11.10, which Jeanie’s side believes protects her position. Duncan also added Section 9.5. It allows two of the three trustees to approve trust actions. His interpretation is that Jeanie Buss’ siblings followed those procedures when voting to sell.

That matters because Jeanie was reportedly the only sibling who was opposed to selling, while five siblings supported the transaction, and two of the three co-trustees voted in favor. The proposed sale would also jeopardize Jeanie’s position as NBA governor because NBA rules require the controlling owner to hold at least a 15% interest.

Duncan also pointed to the family’s 2025 transaction as potentially damaging to Jeanie’s interpretation.

His argument is essentially that the provisions must work together. Sections establishing a mechanism for selling the asset would make considerably less sense if Section 11.10 gave Jeanie Buss a unilateral veto.

Still, Duncan did see a pathway for Jeanie to prevail. A judge could determine that Section 11.10 and the 2017 order override the other provisions and require the trustees to preserve her controlling position.

He went even further with this assessment, saying if the dispute is fully litigated, he believes that something crazy would have to happen for Jeanie to prevail, putting his personal confidence in his reading at roughly 80 to 90%.

That remains Duncan’s analysis rather than a prediction from the court itself. Jeanie’s petition is still pending, and her side’s attorneys maintain that the 2017 order protects her position. The next hearing is being rescheduled for December 8th.

But in Duncan’s reading of the trust, the provisions allowing the siblings and trustees to approve a sale are ultimately the biggest obstacle standing between Jeanie Buss and a courtroom victory.