Jeanie Buss Reacts to LeBron James Rumors, Calls Them 'Completely Unfair' to Lakers Star

Los Angeles Lakers governor Jeanie Buss denied reporting from ESPN's Baxter Holmes that she "began to turn" against franchise superstar LeBron James in recent years.

"It's really not right, given all the great things LeBron has done for the Lakers, that he has to be pulled into my family drama," she said in a statement. "To say that it wasn't appreciated is just not true and completely unfair to him."

As part of a larger exposé into the Buss family's sale of the controlling stake of the Lakers to Mark Walter—and a look into the politics and power struggle among the Buss children after the death of Dr. Jerry Buss in 2013—Holmes also dug into Jeanie Buss' relationship with James.

Per that report, she "privately grumbled, people close to the team say, about what she felt was James' outsized ego and the overt control that he and Klutch Sports, which represents both James and Anthony Davis, exerted over the organization at times."

She also reportedly wasn't fond of the fact that James "was considered a savior for a floundering franchise when he arrived in 2018 and that it was he who chose the Lakers rather than the team's leadership receiving praise for landing him."

She also reportedly "privately bristled" about how James responded to the Russell Westbrook situation. From her perspective, the franchise traded for Westbrook at James' behest—a move that backfired spectacularly—and took issue with his "lack of accountability and the way James would shift blame onto others after the Westbrook trade."

According to Holmes, Buss even "privately mused" about not extending James in 2022 and reportedly considered trading him to the Los Angeles Clippers. And she also privately felt James should have been grateful that the organization drafted his son, Bronny James, in the second round of the 2024 draft but suspected he wasn't.

James' relationship with the Lakers has seemed strained, in general, since the acquisition of Luka Dončić. Wednesday's story would suggest that perhaps it had been straining even sooner than that.