Jeanie Buss: ‘Legacy’ An Open Book About The Lakers

With the popularity of HBO’s Winning Time, loosely based on the 1980s Lakers, current team owner Jeanie Buss wants to set the record straight.

Buss, of course, is the daughter of late former Lakers owner Jerry Buss, portrayed by John C. Relly in Winning Time. That particular show has been renewed for a second season.

But Jeanie’s focus is on “Legacy: The True Story of The LA Lakers,” which debuted on Hulu in August.

Unlike the HBO show, Legacy involves interviews with people who played for and were heavily involved with the franchise.

“I think (the show) kind of helps people understand our process, and what our commitment is to fulfilling (her Jerry Buss’) legacy, which was to make the Lakers the best team in the NBA,” Buss told Sam Amick of The Athletic. “It’s a lot of personal stuff, but that’s just kind of how my family operates. And I think this process has been very healing, especially for the things that have happened the last few years with my siblings, and it’s kind of brought us all together.

“To me, I think we’ve always been an open book. We’ve never really tried to hide anything. Then there became this fascination with the role that Linda and (Kurt) Rambis play. Where did they come from (laughs)? As if they hadn’t been there (all along). Like I was hiding them all these decades or something (still laughing). So I don’t know what led to that, what caused people to be curious.”

It should be noted that Legacy hasn’t been viewed nearly as much as Winning Time, which truly is more entertaining. But as Buss will tell you, Legacy is more of the real deal when to comes to arguably the league’s most popular franchise.