Stephen A. reacts to the Buss family selling the Lakers for $10B 💰 | First Take

Stephen A. reacts to the Buss family selling the Lakers for $10B 💰 | First Take

for the first time in more than four decades the Bus family has agreed to sell the majority ownership of the Lakers to Mark Walter for a cool $10 billion the highest ever for a US professional sports franchise walter has been a stakeholder in the Lakers for the last four years also has ownership over the Dodgers the Sparks Premier League club and a women’s professional hockey league as well jeanie Bus will govern and continue to run the Lakers for the next several years and so a lot of people went to social media for this including legendary Laker Magic Johnson weighed in on the sale and basically approved saying quote “Job well done to my sister Jeannie Bus for striking an incredible deal picking the right Percy to carry on the legacy and tradition of winning mark Walter my business partner and friend is the best choice will be the best caretaker of the Laker brand.” And he goes on and on about how the proof is in the pudding and all the rest of this because obviously the Dodgers just are coming off of a World Series win so the end of an era as the Bus family has been the longest tenur owners in the NBA stephen A what was your reaction to this well first of all I I was happy uh for for Jeie Bus i know this was a hard decision for her uh but obviously as the board of governor for the Los Angeles Lakers she’s somebody that’s going to still represent the franchise uh Mark Walter obviously is going to be the owner uh $10.1 billion is a lot of damn money let’s get that out the way right now especially when you consider the fact that the Boston Celtics uh the most storied franchise in basketball anals outside of the Los Angeles Lakers if not including the Los Angeles Lakers just sold for $6.1 billion and the Lakers get $4 billion more i mean damn that’s a hell of a deal no question about it um I love the fact that the Lakers have somebody that’s that obviously has deep pockets because that means you know when we talking about the luxury tax and the second aprons and all of this stuff and then we take into account that the bus was a family business widely perceived as being such all of these years even though they always managed to get stars the fact that you have an owner with these kind of deep pockets uh that that can compete with the Steve Balmers of the world where I know the rules and regulations stipulate that you know what this but so much spending people can do i mean usually you’re you’re spending around the same money in some instances but I just love the fact that the Los Angeles Lakers this story franchise has somebody with such deep pockets but the biggest thing that I love is that this man has an association with the ultimate winner and that is Irvin Magic Johnson when you get his blessing on something like this remember the man is his business partner with the Los Angeles Dodgers the man clearly knows a thing or two about winning if we look at what the Los Angeles Dodgers have done in terms of what they’ve done to ascend and accumulating the talent that they’ve accumulated they will spare no expense they will go out and get what they need to get to make sure that they are relevant in the championship picture that is the impression that they have given you led by Mark Walter and if that’s what they’ve done with the Dodgers why the hell wouldn’t they do that with the Los Angeles Lakers which means if you are a Los Angeles Lakers fan you know that you’re going to have owners that are just as committed as Jeanie was to making sure this franchise propels forward in a very successful way except their pockets are significantly deeper than h ever was and because of that I think that it’s a great great day for the Los Angeles Lakers and for the NBA and obviously the NBA board of governors are very very happy because they get to split this pot amongst the owners themselves because of revenue sharing in that regard so we got to understand this is a beautiful day for them yeah this is a fascinating situation so So Mark Walter and his group have been partners with Genie Bus for the last few years they bought 27% of the team a couple of years ago and they had the right of first refusal any sale they had the right to match so if the Lakers were ever going to be sold they were going to be sold to Mark Walter and they were going to go for a record price because they are the Lakers it was just a matter of when jerry Bus has six children four from his first marriage two from his second marriage and they’re pretty different in age and to get the team to do anything significant like sell there has to be a majority vote and that’s what happened here um it was not unanimous and so while I don’t know exactly the dynamics of how the vote went historically the older children had more interest in maybe selling whereas the younger children didn’t and Jeannie Bus represented the swing vote and so getting Jeanie on board was vital for Mark Walter and his group and and the fact that she’s going to remain as governor obviously could have very much played into that decision they are selling about 51% of the team they own 66% so they’re going to get about5 billion dollars still incredibly uh you know huge price for the team that uh that Dr bus bought in 1979 so it is a capp sport it is not like the Dodgers where they can just outspend everybody so it’s not as simple as comparing apples to apples right that said one of the reasons why the Dodgers became so successful was they’re investing in infrastructure in scouting in front office in analytics in player uh you know development and that is something where the Lakers on a league average have lagged behind so that is why there’s this reaction across the league let’s open this up a little further because with Genie Bus selling Lakers for 10 billion and Stephen A kind of alluded to it that’s not the only team that’s been sold as of late in 2023 four other NBA franchises sold their team the Celtics the Suns the Mavericks the Hornets also made a sale but none of them even comes close to the number you could see 10 billion uh 4 billion as Stephen A said above the Celtics and the Hornet sold for three billion which it doesn’t even feel like it compares at this point so Wendy I want to go back to you when you look at the sales and particularly what the Lakers just sold for in terms of pricing what does that mean for the future of the NBA term future if you’re in Seattle or Las Vegas you can feel good that the NBA is probably going to move towards expansion because the value of these franchises um the reason why the NBA would not expand for all these years is that if you expand you dilute your overall holding basically what all 30 NBA owners have is 3% of the league and so you know there’s all this money coming in you don’t want to dilute what you have and the the expansion fee wouldn’t necessarily make up for it well that’s not probably true anymore because with these prices the expansion fee I don’t know it could be in excess of $6 billion i don’t even necessarily want to put a price on it because you wait six months and it could be higher and you’ get that times two and an important thing to realize and I know that this is a little bit arcane but it’s so important when you make a dollar in the NBA whether it’s through selling a ticket or getting money from the from the media rights those dollars are split half with the players with expansion they’re not split the owners get to keep all of it so with the prices this high Shay it almost certainly means the NBA is going to move towards expansion and you know with Seattle and Las Vegas being the teams and the reason that they’ve waited this long was to get these gigantic sales to set the new reality in the league a couple of things that I also wanted to add to this conversation Shay and Wendy um listen when you look at the Los Angeles Lakers and Wendy pointed out a lot of nuggets that everybody needs to inhale there because it’s a very very important thing that you know you want parody if you’re the National Basketball Association and even though people might question the ratings and all of this other stuff this is an absolutely fabulous NBA finals with Indiana and OKC going at it it speaks to parody and whatever and it reminds folks of the global impact of the NBA because unlike various other sports the NBA is a global brand it is big worldwide and so but but that doesn’t negate the fact that the Lakers relevance only adds to that attraction and that allore it’s a big deal when the Los Angeles Lakers do something positive and they’re in the forefront of everybody’s mind when it comes to basketball okay you look at the New York Knicks right now according to Forbes they were the third ranked NBA franchise i’m sorry they were they were uh they were second they were valued at 7.5 billion the Warriors were valued at 8.8 billion okay and now you see the Lakers uh being sold for $10.1 billion four billion more than the Boston Celtics we have to pay attention to that i also think it’s very important that Jeannie Bus remained the board of governor for the team for the foreseeable future because listen the one thing that the Lakers have always known how to do A is attract stars and B treat them like one treat them like one not just the stars but the whole ambiance the whole environment so I think it says a lot about Mark Walter and we can’t ignore Magic Johnson because we know that his fingerprints are here somewhere because of the relationship he has with both sides here i think you have to pay attention to that because with Jeanie remaining in tow her and her family still maintaining about 15% ownership in this deal by the way the fact that she’s going to still be a staple but has basically more ammunition to play with per se I think is a huge huge deal for the NBA and everybody stands to benefit so we should be very very happy for her and for the Lakers franchise and for Laker Nation right maybe more ammunition to play with with less pressure too considering she stole sold so much of her stake obviously when you see that Lakers brand and I think this speaks to to the amount of money here it’s so iconic it’s like the Yankees and the Lakers and now the Dodgers are becoming that and I think that’s why you see these numbers creep further and further north welcome back to First Take it is do or die for the Pacers tonight monica McNut is in the building hey girl come on twinning look at us we are kind of twinning marky Morris is back with us of course Stephen A is in Indiana ahead of game six tonight if we look ahead and we’re going to do our best with this right if the Pacers lose tonight at home Stephen A what will be your biggest takeaway my biggest takeaway is going to be that the Pacers are not going away this is not a team that you can look at and this year’s a fluke and there’s no way on earth they’ll be back in this picture seakum is not going to fade nemhard and N Smith is not they’re not scrubs who can’t play and then they just lucked up this year matan I believe in this kid and I believe his promise is there and he will only elevate rick Carile is too exceptional of a coach to not be in the picture making noise in some capacity the Indiana fan base clearly is one of the best in America there is no denying this and I think that when you couple that with so many question marks that exist within the Eastern Conference what the Knicks are going to do who’s their coach going to be what’s the nucleus of their franchise going to entail the Boston Celtics uh sans uh Jason Tatum who’s gonna be out most of the year because of his Achilles tier all right is Orlando really ready does that Desmond Bane acquisition elevate them and if so how much how little we don’t know you know there’s so many Cleveland you going to make up for what transpired this year or is that who you really really are come postseason time there’s so many questions that exist within the Eastern Conference that the Indiana Pacers actually appear to be a very steady franchise on the comeup even though they’re in the finals even though we might look at OKC and say they’re better Indiana is not a joke they are not a franchise to be summarily dismissed and if they were to lose tonight and I don’t believe they will i think they’re going to force a game seven but if they were to lose tonight I don’t think there’s anything to hang their hang their heads about remember last year Hallebertton got hurt for those two games this year he’s hurt again and we know that they’re better when he’s healthy than they are when he’s not and they’re still formidable so I think that Indiana has put us on notice that when it comes to the game of basketball you gonna have to deal with these brothers in the future they’re not just going to go away marke go ahead yeah I totally agree with with Essay um they’re in prime position to be good over the next five years with the way that their team is set up right and and he made a good example about Hollberg getting hurt last year in the Eastern Conference Finals and turn around right back this year into the finals so this shows you that the team is trending in the right direction right so I mean with a win or with a loss I don’t think it changed their future i think you know with with the way the East is set up over the next couple years and not knowing who’s the superior team that they’re always going to have a chance to come back to be right back in the position that they’re in right now i like that takeaway y’all but that’s a forecast to the future i think to me I look back on this year differently right so many folks if you go back to each series I think they were not favored in any series outside of the first round i think you got to look at what they’ve been able to do this year and I while I get the idea that this team is young they got a bunch of guys in their mid to late 20s I do wonder about the demands moving forward right because they are now playing on the biggest stage and what other teams might be looking who’s under contract who’s in in the best position moving forward there’s a core there for sure and we’ve proven that this style of basketball is not just fun but it’s very difficult to defend as they’ve given the best defense in the league a historic defense fits at times um they improved obviously we talked about this last series particularly versus the Knicks how much their defense had improved from January into the playoffs um this is bonafide but I think once you become bonafide you also start talking about money like contracts become a thing like other teams want to poach your talent so yes they could if they’re able to stay healthy for one and if they’re able to stay together but what kind of pressures are there going to be about this team staying together i got to give it I got to give it to the Pacers look last year they came up short of expectations and normally teams who do that make moves mhm you’re seen with the Knicks yep they they change coaches they go out and they do things pacers didn’t do any of that they didn’t say “Hey we need to go get another star to compliment Hallebertton we need to change.” They didn’t do anything they stayed the course they got a year older they got more experience and they got more comfortable and now look where it found them in the finals and so for me I feel like no matter what we look this Hallebertton injury is really unfortunate especially with what he’s been able to do throughout the entirety of this postseason but I got to give it to the Pacers maybe another year with I mean Seakum’s only been there a year and a half essentially like another year under their belt heck they could find their way back here easily stephen well I’m just saying you know I mean I app I I appreciate the expertise i appreciate the expertise Shay you know I’m just saying you know you didn’t have to say that about the Knicks like that you didn’t have to do that i mean true you know you could have stayed You could have stayed on the page you didn’t have to do that Shay that wasn’t really really nice you know but that’s all right that’s okay i mean you suck you do a phenomenal job but you just you just it just seemed like you just took an unnecessary dig there that’s my the amount of times this dude has commented on my Chicago sports and I’ve let it slide that one comment I’m going to just keep it moving we got to get to some betting talk now right will have of course game six of the NBA finals tonight in Indiana 8:30 Eastern 5:30 Pacific on ABC ESPN Deportes and ESPN radio with SGA and the Thunder a win away from their first NBA championship coverage chips with countdown at 8 Eastern

On First Take, Stephen A. Smith and Brian Windhorst react to the Buss family agreeing to sell the Los Angeles Lakers for $10 billion before discussing what it would mean if the Indiana Pacers lose Game 6 of the 2025 NBA Finals to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

0:00 Buss family agrees to sell Lakers for record $10B
5:40 Most recent NBA team sales
5:50 What does this sell mean for the NBA?
7:14 Stephen A. says this is a big deal for the NBA
9:40 What would be the biggest takeaway if the Pacers lose Game 6?
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