Lakers Owner

Without a doubt, life is smiling at Jerry Buss these days. "Like all gamblers, we feel like we're on a run," the Lakers owner said while reclining in a black leather chair near his luxury suite Sunday at Staples Center. The Lakers are five months removed from an NBA championship and favored to win another, leaving Buss in an upbeat mood as one day turns to another. In a wide-ranging 30-minute interview, Buss revealed why he was willing to spend a league-high $112.7 million to satisfy the Lakers' soaring player payroll demands.

It was the summer of 2004, and an aging sports owner was faced with a decision for the ages. It was a choice between two small words with giant ramifications. It was a hurried selection that would last forever. Kobe or Shaq? The debate had raged for years, and now Lakers owner Jerry Buss felt he had to end it. Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, filled with blatant animosity stemming from the deepest of jealousies, could no longer play together. Even three championships couldn't bond them and, at the first possible moment that summer, they both attempted to flee.

Lakers owner Jerry Buss didn't want to predict the future for the NBA regarding its labor issues, but he knows the summer of 2011 has the potential for problems. NBA owners can opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement that summer and bring the players back to the bargaining table. The talk has been that the owners want "give-backs" from the players. When the owners locked the players out during the 1998-99 season, the schedule didn't start until February and included just 50 games.

Jerry Buss did not enroll as a USC graduate student with aspirations of becoming one of the most successful owners in professional sports history. As a youngster, he thought he might be a photographer. But in high school, he shifted his focus to becoming a chemist. "I wanted to go on and teach school in a big university, preferably one with a really good football team," he once said in a television interview, "and that's why I went to USC. " The University of Wyoming graduate earned a master's degree and then a PhD in physical chemistry from USC in 1957, becoming the Dr. Jerry Buss who made a fortune in real estate and purchased the Lakers a little more than two decades later.

Jerry Buss was one of those few men who seemingly recognized that owning a sports franchise is different than owning any other type of business. He appeared to disdain the mantle of chief executive, choosing instead the role of shrewd yet generous steward serving the millions of us who have always felt that in some small measure, the Lakers are actually "ours. " Most teams have fans that feel that way but few of them possess owners so driven to succeed, so willing to invest their money to do so, and then ready to unassumingly stand to the side when the championships arrive and let the fans revel with "our" team.

He has presided over the Lakers since 1979, turning the franchise into one of the most successful in sports. And for that, for all he has done to uplift the NBA, the Lakers and the game of basketball, Lakers owner Jerry Buss will be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday in Springfield, Mass. He will be joined in the class of 2010 by Scottie Pippen, Karl Malone, Cynthia Cooper and high school coach Bob Hurley Sr. The 1992 U.S. men's Olympic basketball team known as the "Dream Team," which included Lakers Hall of Famer Magic Johnson and the 1960 team that included another Lakers Hall of Famer, Jerry West, also will be inducted.

When Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979, he wanted to build a championship team. He also wanted to put on a show. The new owner gave courtside seats to movie stars. He hired pretty women to dance during timeouts. He spent freely on big stars and encouraged a fast-paced, exuberant style of play. As the Lakers sprinted to one NBA title after another, Buss cut an audacious figure in the stands, an aging playboy in bluejeans, often with a younger woman. "I really tried to create a Laker image, a distinct identity," he once said.

It was the summer of 2004, and an aging sports owner was faced with a decision for the ages. It was a choice between two small words with giant ramifications. It was a hurried selection that would last forever. Kobe or Shaq? The debate had raged for years, and now Lakers owner Jerry Buss felt he had to end it. Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, filled with blatant animosity stemming from the deepest of jealousies, could no longer play together. Even three championships couldn't bond them and, at the first possible moment that summer, they both attempted to flee.

For one championship-winning team owner from Boston, the name Jerry Buss conjures memories of two sports superstars whose rivalry from opposite coasts defined an era. Magic vs. Bird? No, Chrissy vs. Martina. The man from Boston is Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, whose first foray into professional sports was as owner of the Boston Lobsters of World Team Tennis from 1975-78. Kraft signed Martina Navratilova after she defected from Czechoslovakia, and after Buss, then owner of the Los Angeles Strings, had made a splash by signing Chris Evert.

As the responsibilities get handed down from Lakers owner Jerry Buss to his son and daughter, more and more will be asked and demanded of Jim Buss . Jeanie Buss has already been given the business side of the Lakers by her father, but Jim is now entrusted with about 90% of his father's decision-making processes on the basketball personnel side, according to Jerry Buss. It's a sensible time for the shift, seeing as how the Lakers won the championship in June and are favored to win another one this season.

Jerry Buss may be gone, but Jerry Buss hasn't gone anywhere. Jerry Buss may have died on Feb. 18 at age 80, but Jerry Buss lives. When watching the Lakers makes you howl, when watching the NBA makes you smile, when watching anything in professional sports makes you tap your toe, Jerry Buss is there. "He was nothing less than a transformational force in the history of sports," said NBA Commissioner David Stern at Buss' memorial service. Forever and ever, amen. When you are cheering the Laker Girls, you are cheering Jerry Buss.

The frozen fields of Wyoming came first. Long before the championship trophies. Before the glitz and glamour. Jerry Buss was still a teenager, digging ditches beside his stepfather, when he dreamed of bigger things. It was youthful ambition - a hunger for excitement - that led him to Southern California, where he amassed a fortune in real estate, traded it all to buy the Lakers, then became the man who transformed pro basketball from sport into spectacle. "I really tried to create a Laker image, a distinct identity," he said years later.

Word got around that Jack Kent Cooke wanted to cash out. It was 1977 and the Lakers owner had entered into a divorce that would eventually cost $41 million, a sum worthy of the Guinness World Records for the most costly marital split in history at that time. His mounting legal bills created an opportunity for an eager buyer named Jerry Buss. The onetime chemist, now wealthy from the real estate boom, wanted to purchase not only the Lakers but also the Forum and the Kings. Buss had one problem -- he wasn't the highest bidder.

Outside of the Lakers, Jerry Buss had another great love: playing poker. So the World Poker Tour put together a video to honor the Lakers owner, who died last week, and on Saturday, the WPT paid tribute to Buss at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles, at the commencement of the L.A. Poker Classic. Buss took second place in the WPT Celebrity Invitational in 2003.  He came in third in the 1991 World Series of Poker seven-card stud event. "I don't know whether poker prepared me for the Lakers or if the Lakers prepared me for poker -- maybe a little bit at the same time," Buss said in 2003.

Jerry Buss was one of those few men who seemingly recognized that owning a sports franchise is different than owning any other type of business. He appeared to disdain the mantle of chief executive, choosing instead the role of shrewd yet generous steward serving the millions of us who have always felt that in some small measure, the Lakers are actually "ours. " Most teams have fans that feel that way but few of them possess owners so driven to succeed, so willing to invest their money to do so, and then ready to unassumingly stand to the side when the championships arrive and let the fans revel with "our" team.

The Lakers (26-29) inched closer to .500 with a 113-99 win over the Boston Celtics on Wednesday night.  That's quite a turnaround after the Lakers were beaten soundly, 116-95, in Boston on Feb. 7. "It was definitely on my mind," Kobe Bryant said of the recent defeat. "They beat us pretty good up there. We certainly wanted to return the favor. " Bryant is expected to speak at the memorial service for Jerry Buss on Thursday. The Lakers owner died on Monday after a battle with an undisclosed form of cancer.

Mike Bresnahan covers the Lakers for the Times. Readers' questions about the Lakers will be answered every week. Question: While approaching the restroom during halftime of a recent USC game, I noticed Jerry Buss standing ahead of me decked out in Trojan gear. The guy in front of me congratulated him on winning the championship. As I walked by I just pointed at him, smiled and said, "You should have never let Pau play in the European championships," to which he replied, "You know, I think you're right."

HONOLULU -- Jerry Buss looked relaxed in a seashell-print shirt and khaki shorts as he sat down near lush hotel grounds of botanical gardens and koi ponds, a paradoxical setting for his frank discussion of the very real possibility that his star player might not be on the team in two years, if not sooner.

For one championship-winning team owner from Boston, the name Jerry Buss conjures memories of two sports superstars whose rivalry from opposite coasts defined an era. Magic vs. Bird? No, Chrissy vs. Martina. The man from Boston is Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, whose first foray into professional sports was as owner of the Boston Lobsters of World Team Tennis from 1975-78. Kraft signed Martina Navratilova after she defected from Czechoslovakia, and after Buss, then owner of the Los Angeles Strings, had made a splash by signing Chris Evert.

When Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979, he wanted to build a championship team. He also wanted to put on a show. The new owner gave courtside seats to movie stars. He hired pretty women to dance during timeouts. He spent freely on big stars and encouraged a fast-paced, exuberant style of play. As the Lakers sprinted to one NBA title after another, Buss cut an audacious figure in the stands, an aging playboy in bluejeans, often with a younger woman. "I really tried to create a Laker image, a distinct identity," he once said.