Jeanie Buss

“I wanted to get married. That's who I am.”

“In terms of basketball decisions, I will always defer to Magic. He's brought a vision of the kind of team we're going to build and a vision of what Lakers basketball is going to be.”

“There's a whole other chapter of my life where I was, for 15 years, the significant other of coach Phil Jackson.”

“I had a tough year, losing my dad. And I really needed to have some quiet time, and not be engaged the way I normally would be with the Lakers.”

“Yes, I was given a privileged position at a young age. But if I had not been willing to work hard and prepare myself for all the challenges I would face, I would not have held on to my position all these years, regardless of my family ties.”

“I want people to know that I don't take for granted what's been given to me.”

“Who wouldn't want to own the Lakers?”

“For me, the burning desire has always been about building what my family had.”

“Being able to make people laugh is a powerful tool.”

“The team will always be bigger than any one owner, or any one player, or one coach. The team is always first.”

“The NBA requires that one person is the acting owner, the one person they can get on the phone and is accountable for anything that happens. That's why my dad started taking me to NBA board of governors meetings in 1995; you have to be approved as the owner.”

“Kobe is part of the Laker family and he always will be. There's not many players who play 18-19 years with the same franchise, and it's important to us that he has a chance to play his entire career with the Lakers.”

“I can't compare myself to Phil Jackson in any way, shape or form. His view on the world and his intellectual approach, I don't have that in common with him.”

“You can't just live in the past, peddling the '80s Showtime Lakers, and expect everyone to know what that is. We have many fans who weren't even alive in the '80s.”

“That's what people don't understand, that in the NBA these are the best 450 players in the world, in the game of basketball, are in the NBA.”

“There's the gold standard, and then there's the purple-and-gold standard.”

“We could not be more proud to have LeBron James as part of our Lakers family. He is an incredibly thoughtful and intelligent leader and clearly appreciates the power sports has to unite communities and inspire the world to be a better place.”

“I think it's impossible to tell your coach and tell your players, 'Try not to win.' That goes against everything an organization is about.”

“I always tell Phil we're like the party poopers. If we ever get invited to a player party, between the two of us, we're like the downers. Like, 'Put down that beer!' Or, 'Should you really be eating those nachos?'”

“I have a great relationship with all my brothers. I've got three other ones. There's four boys and two girls. It's a family business.”