The Bucks have three controlling partners in co-Owners Wes Edens, Marc Lasry and Jamie Dinan, and the franchise now must "navigate a sticky ownership situation that manifested itself over the past few weeks," according to Lowe & Windhorst of ESPN.com. Following the departure of former GM John Hammond, the trio "refused to implement what appeared to be their own plan to replace Hammond" with Assistant GM Justin Zanik, which they followed by promoting former Dir of Basketball Operations Jon Horst to GM. Even Horst was "surprised by the move." Sources said that Horst's hiring was a "brokered solution after some disagreement among the ownership." At Horst's introductory news conference June 19, Edens was the "only partner present." Sources said that when Edens, Lasry and Dinan "pooled their money to purchase" the Bucks in '14, they "agreed to vote on major matters." Although a 2-1 majority "could rule, the group wanted all decisions to be unanimous, and the men worked together to make sure that was the case." Sources said that this was the "framework the owners explained to candidates for front-office positions recently." Zanik's ascension would "represent a fresh start and fresh ideas, as well." However, Lowe & Windhorst noted somewhere along the way, one of the team's three ownership partners "soured on Zanik." Zanik had the "support of two of those partners." Sources said that the holdout was Edens, and he "wanted to open the job to a full search." Edens is the team's "designated governor." Sources said that under league rules, that person has "unilateral authority on all basketball-related decisions if he or she chooses to wield it." Lasry "takes over the governor role in two years from Edens under the conditions of an unusual ownership agreement that calls for Edens and Lasry to swap the governorship between them over five-year terms" (ESPN.com, 6/30).
