Jim Buss Biography
Jim Buss is an American businessman and former executive of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is the son of former Lakers owner Jerry Buss. And was the team’s executive vice president of player personnel from 2005 to 2013. In 2013, he was promoted to executive vice president of basketball operations. He held the position until 2017.
He was vice president of the Los Angeles Lazers professional indoor soccer team from 1985–1989. Buss later trained thoroughbred race horses for nine years before joining the Lakers in 1998 as an assistant general manager. In 2005, his employer promoted him to the position of vice president of basketball operations.
Jim Buss Age
James Hatten Buss was born on November 9, 1959 in Los Angeles County, California, U.S. He is [agecalc birthdate=1959-11-09]
Jim Buss Family | Jerry Buss Jim Buss | Jo Ann Jim Buss
He was born to JoAnn Mueller and former Lakers owner Jerry Buss. Jim was born the second of four children, growing up with older brother Johnny and sisters Jeanie and Janie. His parents then divorced in 1972.
After Jerry died in 2013. His controlling ownership of the Lakers passed to his children via a family trust. With each of his children receiving an equal interest.
Jim Buss
Jim Buss Wife
Buss married in 1983, and the couple adopted a son, Jagger. The couple separated months later, but continued living together for six months while a social worker was monitoring the adoption. They divorced in late 1985 with Jim gaining sole custody of their son.
Jim Buss Johnny Buss
Johnny is the older brother to Jim and is also a part-owner. And vice president of strategic development of the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Jim Buss Jeanie Buss
Jeanie is the younger sister to Jim. She is the controlling owner and president of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Jim Buss Jesse Buss
Jesse Buss is the L.A. Lakers assistant general manager.
Jim Buss Lakers
Jim invested in a small business with his best friend, but the friend died in a car accident in 1981. The death left Buss devastated and also lost, and the business was left to fade.
He became president of his father’s indoor soccer team, the Los Angeles Lazers, after his brother Johnny had quitting 1985. He brought annual losses down from $1 million to $500,000, but the team folded in 1989.
Buss next became a horse trainer, he received from his father the half-dozen thoroughbreds he owned. His father divested himself of his horse racing stock that was increasingly unprofitable in 1997.
Shortly after, Jerry invited his son to join the Lakers. Which is a basketball team he acquired in 1979 and built it into one of the most lucrative and popular in all of sports.
Buss started with the Lakers in 1998 as an apprentice to general manager Jerry West and his assistant, Mitch Kupchak. He shared his thoughts on scouting. Saying: “Evaluating basketball talent is not too difficult during an interview with Sports Illustrated for its November 1998 issue.
If you grabbed 10 fans out of a bar and asked them to rate prospects. Their opinions would be pretty much identical to those of the pro scouts.”
Jim later said he was trying to compliment Lakers scouts. Who faced a challenge with the team usually picking late in the NBA Draft compared to the consensus that he believed existed with lottery picks. But the quote became controversial nevertheless.
He continued to learn the basketball business from his father as well as West and then Kupchak. Who was promoted to general manager in 2000. After the Lakers had lost in the 2004 NBA Finals. Jim decided that the Lakers would sign Rudy Tomjanovich to replace the outgoing Phil Jackson.
During that summer, the team signed Tomjanovich to a five-year, $30 million contract. Rudy resigned after a half season, citing mental and physical exhaustion.
The Lakers then paid him a $10 million settlement, which lead to speculation that the Lakers had instead terminated his contract. Jim was promoted to vice president of player personnel in 2005.
Jerry’s plan was to have Jim handle the basketball decisions for the team, while his sister Jeanie, the vice president of business operations, handled the business side of the Lakers.
After Jerry died in 2013, his 66% controlling ownership of the Lakers passed to his six children via a trust, with each child receiving an equal vote. His succession plan had Jeanie buss assume his previous title as the Lakers’ governor as well as its team representative at NBA Board of Governors meetings.
The Lakers were unable to resign the free agent Howard, who joined the Houston Rockets while accepting $30 million less than the Lakers offer after the season.
Jeanie commented that she “would be more comfortable [with her business relationship with Buss] if I understood what the [basketball] decision process was, and I’m not always involved in it.”
In 2013–14, she became Lakers president, and her role included overseeing the team’s basketball operations while working with Jim, who then continued as Lakers executive VP of basketball operations.
Magic Johnson a former Lakers player and part owner, who was also close to Jim’s father, believed that Jim needed to put aside his ego and then seek assistance to help the Lakers recruit against rival teams for free agent players.
That season, he signed Bryant to a two-year extension worth $48.5 million, even before Bryant had recovered from an Achilles tendon tear. The Los Angeles Times called the deal “one of many terrible Lakers moves” that year.
Jim pledged to his siblings that he would step down if the Lakers were not contending for the Western Conference championship in three to four years in January 2014. According to Jeanie, she was holding him to his self-imposed deadline, and she was expecting him to lead the Lakers to at least the second round of the playoffs by 2016–17.
Fire Buss Jim
On February 21, 2017, the Lakers relieved Jim of his duties as head of basketball operations, but allowed him to retain his ownership stake in the team. Subsequently, following a disagreement with his sister regarding ownership of the team, the Buss family trust removed Jim as a trustee and he was also removed from the Lakers board of directors.
Jim Buss Net Worth
There is no available information on his net worth.
