Betrayal, bloodlines and a battle for the throne.

Again.

Nine years after their last Game of Thrones-esque power struggle, the Los Angeles Lakers have somehow wandered back into Westeros, only this time the drama is more scintillating and vicious than ever before. 

Forget Succession, the better comparison is House of the Dragon.  

And Jeanie Buss is Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen. 

The similarities between the Buss family and the hit HBO show have become almost absurd. 

Both stories begin with an aging patriarch presiding over a powerful dynasty and making his succession wishes unmistakably clear.

In Season One, King Viserys chose his daughter Rhaenyra to inherit the throne, just as Dr. Jerry Buss chose his daughter Jeanie to become controlling owner of the Lakers. Those instructions were later reinforced by language in the family trust requiring the trustees to take reasonable steps to keep her in control. 

But then the patriarch died and everybody started reaching for the Iron Throne. 

Dr. Buss purchased the Lakers from Jack Kent Cooke in 1979. Under his family’s leadership, the Lakers have more wins than any franchise in history over that span and 11 NBA championships, more than any other team during their tenure. 

When Dr. Buss died in 2013, the family harmony he envisioned didn’t survive him very long. The Lakers become their own version of the Dance of the Dragons, except instead of Vhagar and Caraxes scorching the Red Keep, it was Jeanie and Jim’s lawyers scorching each other with court filings. 

Jim first tried to usurp Jeanie in 2017 after Jeanie fired her brother as head of basketball operations. Together, Jim and Johnny Buss pushed for a new Lakers board that conspicuously did not include their sister. Without a board seat, Jeanie could not remain the controlling owner. She got a restraining order, took them to court, stopped the maneuver and ultimately emerged with her authority strengthened. 

Pick whichever Buss brother you want to cast as Aegon II or Aemond or even Daemon Targaryen. The analogy doesn’t need to be anatomically perfect. The important part is the recurring theme of a family fighting for the throne after their patriarch has died. 

We’ve seen this show before. 

Only now the Targaryens all have private-equity portfolios and billions of dollars to play with instead of dragons. 

Last year, Jeanie agreed to sell the majority share of the Lakers to Mark Walter at a $10 billion valuation while working out a deal to remain governor of the team until 2030. Then immediately after Walter took over, Joey and Jesse Buss were dismissed from their basketball operations positions as the new regime began reshaping the organization. 

Jeanie instantly took on the role of villain within her own family. 

Queen Rhaenyra spent Season Two of House of the Dragon learning the uncomfortable truth about inherited power: that having a king proclaim you as the rightful heir doesn’t mean everybody around you will happily kneel. 

A coup was contrived by the Hightowers (House Green) and King Viserys younger sons Aegon II and Aemond. Aegon was crowned in Rhaneyra’s place and she was exiled to Dragonstone before a war between the family broke out for the throne. 

Jeanie is now entrenched in the Lakers version. 

According to ESPN, five of the Buss siblings voted on Monday to sell the family’s remaining 17.8% stake in the Lakers to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger after Walter agreed to sell his controlling interest at a $12.5 billion valuation last Wednesday. Jeanie was the lone sibling who did not vote for the sale, and now her attorney is arguing the transaction is “void” and cannot proceed under the terms governing the family trust. 

Why would she try to stop it?

Because if that 17.8% disappears or dips below 15%, then Jeanie would fall below the ownership threshold necessary to remain Lakers governor. 

The latest coup by the Buss brothers is so wonderfully House of the Dragon that it might as well have been ripped out of the script itself. Years ago, it was Jim and Johnny trying to usurp Jeanie’s power. Joey and Jesse were perceived as part of her side of the family power structure. Now the alliances have shifted again. 

And that’s the point of George R.R. Martin’s novel A Dance With Dragons that the show is based on. There are no permanent teams when a throne is involved. Allies become enemies. Enemies become useful. Family loyalty lasts right up until somebody believes they have the opportunity to sit on the Iron Throne. 

Even Jeanie’s sale to Walter now feels like the betrayal of Queen Rhaenyra’s new Targaryen bastard dragon riders from Season Three. The idea was to harness enormous outside financial power while still preserving her place atop the Lakers kingdom. Instead, Walter is already selling the team to Iger and Kushner less than a year after he took control. Now, Jeanie suddenly finds herself fighting to preserve the very authority the original transaction was designed to protect. 

And as House of the Dragon reminds us, power is easy to acquire, but much harder to keep. 

You won’t find dragons flying above Crypto.com Arena any time soon, but the fight for power of the Lakers now features billionaires, lawyers, trusts, emergency meetings, sibling alliances, and nearly half a century of family history hanging in the balance. 

For nearly 50 years, the Buss family has been Lakers royalty. Dr. Buss built the kingdom. Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and LeBron James decorated its walls with championship banners. 

But dynasties rarely fear outsiders as much as they should realize the real threat comes from within the household. 

King Viserys spent his final years believing his succession plan would preserve the Targaryen dynasty. 

Dr. Buss probably believed the same thing. 

But both fathers discovered the same truth:

You can name an heir, but you can’t make the family bend the knee.

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