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Jerry Buss

I have probably spent more time with the general manager and my son, who’s the assistant GM, and the coaches even, than I ever have in my life. I wanted to see if we can build a third champion in my tenure. I find this to be a bigger challenge than it was my first two times.

The first time we had Magic Johnson, all we had to do was fit in the pieces. The second time, of course, having Shaq and Kobe, the two best players in the game, then we added Phil Jackson, and that was it.

This time, what do we do? We have Kobe, and that’s where we start. So, we’ll see.

The problem was, the way I could see it, if we re-signed Shaq, within two to three years, we would be going very quickly downhill and we would have no opportunity to get any new people. When you’re at the bottom, it probably takes five or six years to build back up. I just couldn’t handle six years at the bottom.

Phil, I think, kind of, I don’t want to say humiliated himself, but he kind of steps outside the blocks, I think, when he told too many of the tales of the inside locker-room situation. (1)

There are some inaccuracies that only I know about. He comments on what took place in meetings between me and Kobe. Well, he wasn’t there.

When I sat down and looked around, (2) I played against those people and I knew they were all A-class players –A-double-plus players. I thought, well, let me see if I could last one or two spots. As it turned out, I believe I knocked one of them out, and Layne (3) knocked everyone else out. Just staying out of his way, and the next thing I knew, I was heads up with him.

I usually play $500-$1,000.

I had a mentor in a chemistry professor in high school. He kind of adopted me and put me under his wing and kept tutoring me until I was able to get a scholarship to go to college. Ultimately, I got the doctorate in chemistry.

I was a big Dodger fan in those days. Brooklyn Dodgers. Gil Hodges and Duke Snider and Carl Furillo. Later on, Drysdale and Koufax.

I was a professor at USC, but I wasn’t making enough money to support a family. So, I started a little business on the side, and that business started getting bigger and bigger and bigger– it was real estate — and it became so much bigger than anything else, I had to devote full time to it.

When I bought this team, it was really what I call an “away” team. Everybody who lived in New York used to come out and cheer for New York. Then it would be we’d play Chicago, and it would be all the Chicago people. So, I had to develop some type of an identity, so that’s why I started inviting all the celebrities to give it a hometown flavor. Then it became Hollywood’s team, then California’s team, and then the national team, quite honestly.

Muhammad Ali was one of the top people I got to meet. I got to meet Ted Williams. I got to meet Willie Mays. And Sean Connery was a big thing for me.

I was friends with Hefner for a very long time, way before she even posed. (4) I used to go up to the mansion for different parties. We owned a Playboy club in Phoenix.

The Lakers, we paid $16 million for them. (5) I don’t know what they’re worth now, but some people say they might be worth $500 or $600 million. That’s a pretty good return.

(1) – In Jackson’s latest book.

(2) – At the final table of the World Poker Tour Invitational in Los Angeles in 2003.

(3) – Flack, the eventual winner.

(4) – His daughter, Jeanie, in Playboy.

(5) – When he bought the team from Jack Kent Cooke in 1979.