When Jeanie Buss headed down the Southern California coast on the drive that would eventually lead her to LeBron James, the Lakers owner and CEO wasn’t feeling the mother-of-dragons spirit just yet.



It was early February 2017 – 15 months before Kobe Bryant would text her that meme of the Game of Thrones’ queen, Daenerys Targaryen, as both an inside joke and a congratulations for landing the game’s greatest player – and the Lakers heiress was finally facing the decision that had been looming large for years. Would she use the power granted by her late father, Dr. Jerry Buss, to fire her older brother, Jim, and longtime general manager, Mitch Kupchak, as punishment for four years of dysfunction and decline? Or, as she wondered that day, would she give them more time to right this wayward ship while hoping that her longtime friend and new ally, Magic Johnson, could help improve the toxic situation?



Jeanie, who just weeks before had hired...