LOS ANGELES — It was Jerry Buss' wish.
Call it a dying wish if you want, because he made it to his second son in his final days from a hospital bed. Buss was weak from chemotherapy treatments targeted at a tumor that kept growing back, late in a cancer fight he believed would continue longer than it did.
He could only stay awake for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. There was no comprehension of how poorly his team was doing with Dwight Howard.
But it was the same wish Jerry had carried for the past decade in his trust: His six children would inherit majority ownership in the Los Angeles Lakers from him, and that second son, Jim, would be in charge of the Lakers basketball operations.
Jerry encouraged Jim to assume the job Jim had dearly wanted for some time. Jim would boast to people back when the Lakers were still in the Forum in the late 1990s how he would shortly be in charge of the team, and it wouldn't even take his father's death to have it happen.
His father's appeal for him to do the job is a big part of why Jim is still where he is despite the poor on-court results and a work ethic hi ...
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Article written by Kevin Ding
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