The National Basketball Association lost one of its own with the passing of longtime Lakers owner Jerry Buss, but the poker world also lost one of its familiar faces and nicest guys. Buss died in mid-February at the age of 80. He had been battling cancer.

For years, plenty of Los Angeles Lakers urged the Buss family to sell the franchise. The franchise had been owned by the family since 1979, when the late Dr. Jerry Buss bought it from Jake Kent Cooke, its previous owner, but after Dr. Buss died in 2013, it ...