The Los Angeles Lakers fired front office executives Joey and Jesse Buss, along with several members of the team’s scouting staff, league sources confirmed Thursday.
The reasons behind the firing were not immediately clear, as the organization did not announce the changes. However, in an interview with The Athletic, Jesse Buss expressed no real surprise at the decision and detailed a disconnect with the team’s primary stakeholders — his sister, longtime owner Jeanie Buss, as well as president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka — that he said had been growing for quite some time.
“She’s fired everyone,” Jesse Buss said of Jeanie Buss’ dealings with other family members who have worked for the organization.
Jesse Buss, the Lakers’ draft guru, said he’s felt a growing gap with the team’s leaders since long before the 2025 sale of the organization to Mark Walter for a $10 billion valuation, which the NBA’s Board of Governors approved last month. As part of the deal, Jeanie Buss negotiated to remain on as the team’s operating governor for at least five years, according to sources familiar with the deal.
Jesse Buss, meanwhile, has been dealing with an unspecified illness over the past few years and is currently receiving immunotherapy treatments.
“I kind of felt siloed quite a bit, dating back to before, I guess, the 2023 draft,” Buss said by phone. “And I kind of didn’t think much of it, but you know, as time went on and there was a lack of communication between not only my sister and I, but you know, the organization as a whole — while I was combating various health issues,” he said. “I kind of felt like the writing was on the wall.”
There were public signs that the Buss brothers were already planning for life after the Lakers, as they announced the joint-launching of a sports investment and strategic partnership company in September. Still, it was the timing of this choice that came as the real surprise — to them and rival executives around the league.
The Lakers are off to an 11-4 start this season, tied for third place in the Western Conference, and their best start since the 2020-21 season. Some of the players whom the Buss brothers helped land, chief among them Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura, have played pivotal parts in the strong start.
“The sale of the team happening kind of more or less just solidified it in my mind,” Buss continued. ”And I just, more or less expected it. Obviously this is, you know, a job I’ve loved for a very long time. And I love this organization. I love the fans. I love the city of Los Angeles. It’s pretty much all I’ve known my entire life.”
For more than a decade, Joey and Jesse Buss were central figures in the franchise’s scouting and player-development operation, helping identify and cultivate key role players such as Reaves, Kyle Kuzma, Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance Jr. and Max Christie. Joey most recently served as the Lakers’ alternate governor and vice president of research and development, while Jesse worked as the Lakers’ director of scouting, playing a leading role in the team’s draft strategy.
In this season’s media guide, Joey is identified as the team’s Vice President of Research and Development, and Jesse is listed as the assistant general manager and director of scouting. Joey and Jesse have spent their careers within the Lakers ecosystem, with Joey previously serving as president and CEO of the South Bay Lakers, the team’s G League affiliate, and Jesse long regarded as one of the organization’s key evaluators as director of scouting.
“I don’t think it’s bittersweet because first and foremost I’m a Lakers fan,” Jesse Buss said. “Even if I’m not part of the organization in any capacity, I’m always gonna root for this team. And obviously I root for, you know, players that Joey and I had a part of bringing in on the team, you know, such as Austin and Rui.”
