1947-48: The Game's
First Star
The Lakers franchise predates the NBA. The
Minneapolis Lakers' first season was 1947-48, when the team
entered the National Basketball League. A strange series
of events early that year landed the Lakers the biggest
prize in the game at that time-center George Mikan.
Mikan was a 6-10 giant of a man who had dominated
college basketball in his four years at DePaul. He joined
the Chicago American Gears at the end of the 1945-46 season,
then led the Gears to the NBL Championship the following
year.
Prior to the 1947-48 campaign Maurice White,
president of the American Gear Company and owner of the
Chicago team, pulled the club out of the NBL. White's plan
was to create a 24-team circuit called the Professional
Basketball League of America, in which he would own all
of the teams and all of the arenas. But the new league lasted
barely a month, and the players on White's teams were distributed
among the 11 NBL franchises. The first-year Minneapolis
Lakers landed Mikan strictly by chance.
The Lakers were a good team even without
Mikan. The club featured a fine forward named Jim Pollard
and one of the better playmakers in the league in Herm Schaefer.
Coaching the squad was John Kundla, who had been hired away
from the University of Minnesota. But once the bespectacled
Mikan joined the Lakers there was no stopping them.
Minneapolis walked away with the NBL crown
that season. After winning the Western Division by 13 games,
the team disposed of the Oshkosh All-Stars, the Tri-Cities
Blackhawks, and the Rochester Royals. Minneapolis lost only
two games during the postseason, one in the first round
and one in the finals against the Royals. Mikan paced the
circuit in scoring during the regular season with 21.3 points
per game and was tops in postseason play with an average
of 24.4 points per contest.
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1948-49: Minneapolis
Jumps to BAA
Before the 1948-49 season began the Minneapolis
Lakers, Rochester Royals, Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons and
Indianapolis Kautskys (later renamed the Jets) jumped to
the Basketball Association of America. The BAA was already
an eight-team league that included franchises in such major
markets as New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago. The
addition of the four NBL teams now gave the league the big-name
players it needed.
The biggest name of all was Mikan, and fans
flocked to see him in every BAA city. When the Lakers arrived
in New York to face the Knickerbockers, the marquee at Madison
Square Garden read ¿George Mikan vs. Knicks.î
Rochester and Minneapolis dueled for the
top spot in the BAA°s Western Division, but the Royals edged
out the Lakers by one game, even though the tall, broad-shouldered,
and extremely agile Mikan played with unstoppable force.
His 28.3 points per game led the league and accounted for
one-third of the Lakers° point production.
Minneapolis swept the Chicago Stags in the
first round of the 1949 playoffs before attention shifted
to a division finals matchup that pitted the Lakers against
the Royals. Minneapolis squeezed out a one-point win in
Game 1, then stormed back from a 12-point third-quarter
deficit to take Game 2 and sweep the best-of-three series.
The BAA Finals came next, and the Lakers
faced the Washington Capitols, who were coached by Arnold
¿Redî Auerbach. Minneapolis notched three quick wins to
open the best-of-seven series. In Game 4 Mikan sustained
a broken wrist, and the Capitols came away with a win. Mikan
played Game 5 with a cast on his hand and still pumped in
22 points, but Washington prevailed. Game 6 was played on
the Lakers° home court, and Minneapolis came away with a
77-56 win and a BAA Championship
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1949-51: Lakers
Win First NBA Finals
The BAA and the NBL merged after that season,
and the NBA was born for the 1949-50 campaign. In its first
year the NBA consisted of 17 teams competing in three divisions.
Minneapolis was assigned to the Central Division (the new
circuit's strongest division), where the team once again
went head-to-head with Rochester.
If anything, the Lakers were even better
than they had been the season before. The team included
a trio of promising first-year players in forward Vern Mikkelsen
and guards Slater Martin and Bud Grant. (Grant went on to
greater fame as coach of the football Minnesota Vikings.)
Minneapolis seemed to have a lock on the
top spot in the Central Division, but Rochester put together
a 15-game winning streak as the campaign wound down, and
the teams ended the regular season tied for first with identical
51-17 records. The Lakers then edged the Royals by a single
basket in a one-game playoff to claim the division title.
For the second season in a row Minneapolis
waltzed through the preliminary rounds of the postseason.
The powerful Lakers felled the Chicago Stags in the Central
Division Semifinals, swept the Fort Wayne Pistons in two
games in the division finals, and then dusted the Anderson
Duffey Packers in two games in the NBA Semifinals.
The first NBA Finals pitted the Lakers against
the Syracuse Nationals. The Nats had the home-court advantage,
but the Lakers took Game 1 in Syracuse when reserve guard
Bob Harrison heaved in a 40-foot shot at the buzzer to give
Minneapolis a two-point victory. The Nationals evened the
series the next night. When the Finals reconvened in Minnesota
five days later, Minneapolis pounded out a 91-77 win, then
followed that with a victory in Game 4. Syracuse postponed
the inevitable by shutting down Mikan in Game 5, but the
Lakers came back with a 110-95 victory in Game 6 to earn
the first NBA Championship. Mikan, who had led the league
in scoring during the regular season with 27.4 points per
game (only one other player topped 20.0 ppg), poured in
31.3 points per contest in the playoffs.
A slimmed-down NBA fielded 11 teams in the
1950-51 campaign and went back to a two-division format,
with the Lakers returning to the Western Division. With
the best players from the six disbanded clubs distributed
throughout the remaining teams, the offseason attrition
helped to raise the level of competition in the two-year-old
league.
The Lakers were favored to repeat as NBA
champs that season. In addition to Mikan, the team boasted
a solid frontcourt in Jim Pollard and Vern Mikkelsen and
a better-than-average backcourt in Bob Harrison and Slater
Martin. Minneapolis took the Western Division by three games
and posted the league's best record at 44-24. But the playoffs
didn't go according to plan. Minneapolis lost a game to
the Indianapolis Olympians in the division semifinals, marking
the Lakers' first-ever loss in a preliminary playoff round.
They nevertheless won the series, two games to one, and
advanced to face old rival Rochester in the Western Division
Finals. The Lakers won Game 1, but the Royals came back
with three straight victories to take the best-of-five series.
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1951-52: NBA Tries
To Slow Down "Big George"
The NBA widened the foul lane before the
1951-52 season in an attempt to slow Mikan, but the rule
change had a minimal effect on "Big George." He still averaged
23.8 points, but he lost the scoring title to Paul Arizin,
a sharp-shooting forward with the Philadelphia Warriors.
The Lakers went into the campaign with essentially
the same lineup. Rochester took the Western Division crown
by a game, but the Lakers ousted the Royals in four games
in the division finals to set up an NBA Finals matchup between
the Lakers and the New York Knickerbockers.
Minneapolis took Game 1 at St. Paul but needed
overtime to do so. The Knicks prevailed in Game 2. Back
in New York, Games 3 and 4 were played at the 69th Regiment
Armory instead of at Madison Square Garden because the circus
was in town. The teams split those games, and Games 5 and
6 as well. Game 7 was all Minneapolis. The Lakers pounded
out an 82-65 win at home to claim their second NBA crown
in three years.
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1952-53: Basketball's
First Dynasty
The 1952-53 Lakers outmuscled the Royals
during the regular season to finish atop the Western Division
by a four-game margin. Mikan's scoring output dipped a notch
to 20.6 points per game, second best in the league. He was
joined in the NBA's top 10 by teammate Vern Mikkelsen, who
finished eighth with 15.0 points per game. Mikan led the
league in rebounding, pulling down 14.4 boards per contest.
In the playoffs the Lakers and the Knickerbockers
marched toward an NBA Finals rematch. Minneapolis whipped
past Indianapolis and Fort Wayne in the preliminary rounds.
Meanwhile, in the Eastern Division, New York downed the
Baltimore Bullets and then the Boston Celtics.
The NBA Finals opened in Minneapolis, and
the Knicks stunned the Lakers with an eight-point win in
Game 1. Minneapolis barely beat the Knicks in Game 2, winning
by a slim two-point margin. The next three games were scheduled
for New York, and with the series tied at one game apiece,
the Knickerbockers had hopes of unseating the defending
champions. But the Lakers would have none of that. They
took all three contests at Madison Square Garden to win
the series and become the NBA's first repeat champs. With
four championships in five years (including the BAA crown
in 1949), the Lakers staked a claim as professional basketball's
first dynasty.
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1953-54: Lovellette
Comes To The Rescue Of Ailing Mikan
The following season saw Mikan's production
dip again. Bad knees were beginning to take a toll on the
29-year-old center, and he scored only 18.1 points per game.
But the Lakers signed a promising rookie named Clyde Lovellette,
who was more than capable of spelling Mikan at the center
position.
Minneapolis won the Western Division in 1953-54,
posting the NBA's best record at 46-26. The playoffs got
off to an odd start when the league experimented with a
round-robin format in the first round. Minneapolis survived,
then downed Rochester in the Western Division Finals. The
expected NBA Finals rematch between the Lakers and the Knickerbockers
failed to materialize because New York was eliminated in
the Eastern Conference round-robin. Instead, the Lakers
faced Syracuse.
The Nationals surprised Minneapolis with
a two-point win on the Lakers' home court in Game 2, tying
the series at one game apiece. The Lakers then took two
out of three games in Syracuse, and the teams returned to
Minneapolis with the Lakers leading, three games to two.
Syracuse survived Game 6 with another two-point victory,
but the Lakers made it three titles in a row with an 87-80
triumph in the deciding game.
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1954-58: New Rules
Are Bad News For Lakers
The NBA instituted two revolutionary rule
changes shortly after the end of the 1953-54 season. The
24-second shot clock was introduced, as was a limit of six
team fouls per quarter (after which every foul would result
in penalty free throws). The new rules accomplished two
things: they helped quicken the pace of the action on the
court, and they took away the tactical advantage of fouling
a player who has possession of the ball late in a game.
The big question was what effect the new
rules would have on the three-time defending NBA-champion
Lakers, a team built around the size and power of George
Mikan. But the question was never really answered, because
Mikan retired before the 1954-55 season began and assumed
the job of team general manager.
With Mikan gone, the center position fell
to second-year player Clyde Lovellette, who contributed
18.7 points and 11.5 rebounds per game. But Lovellette was
not the defensive force that Mikan had been, and the Lakers
finished 40-32, second to the Fort Wayne Pistons in the
Western Division. Minneapolis survived the first round of
the playoffs but fell to the Pistons in four games in the
division finals. The beginning of the shot-clock era meant
the end of the Lakers' dynasty.
Age was also beginning to take its toll on
Minneapolis. Jim Pollard retired before the 1955-56 season,
ending an eight-year career with the Lakers that stretched
back to the NBL days. Guard Slater Martin had a fine season,
but he was 30 years old. The Lakers' youngest starter was
the 26-year-old Lovellette, who had become the team's star,
finishing fourth in the league in scoring (21.5 ppg) and
third in rebounding (14.0 rpg).
By midseason the Lakers were struggling so
badly that they prevailed upon Mikan to come out of retirement.
It took him some time to get back into shape, but by the
end of the season he had become a solid contributor, if
not the star he had been a few years earlier. All told,
Mikan appeared in 37 regular-season contests, averaging
10.5 points and 8.3 rebounds.
Slater Martin finished among the NBA's top
10 in assists (6.2 apg) and free-throw percentage (.833),
while seven-year veteran Vern Mikkelsen led the league in
personal fouls for the second year in a row.
The Lakers fell under .500 for the first
time in franchise history that season, finishing with a
33-39 record. Facing the St. Louis Hawks in the playoffs,
Minneapolis dropped Game 1, 116-115, then walloped the Hawks
by 58 points in Game 2. But St. Louis came back with a repeat
of the opening game and won Game 3, 116-115, to take the
series.
In 1956-57 Minneapolis managed to earn a
tie for first place in the Western Division, but that said
more about the division's weakness than about the Lakers'
strength. Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Fort Wayne shared
first place with identical losing records of 34-38. By contrast,
the last-place team in the Eastern Division was 36-36.
After a series of one-game playoffs, St.
Louis earned the Western Division title and a bye in the
first round of the 1957 NBA Playoffs. While the Hawks waited,
the Lakers and the Pistons squared off in the division semifinals.
Minneapolis prevailed with a two-game sweep. St. Louis then
took out the Lakers in three straight, but the series was
close for a sweep. The Hawks won Game 1 by a comfortable
nine-point margin. Game 2 was a squeaker at 106-104. The
final contest was a no-holds-barred marathon. The game lasted
through a pair of overtime periods, and when it ended, St.
Louis was the team still standing. The final score was Hawks
143, Lakers 135.
The franchise endured a disastrous season
in 1957-58. George Mikan was persuaded to assume the head
coaching duties, but he failed miserably and stepped aside
after the club fell to 9-30. John Kundla moved back into
the coaching spot after half a season in the front office,
but there wasn't much he could do with the Lakers that year.
The team finished with a 19-53 record and in last place
in the Western Division.
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1958-60: Baylor
Ushers In A New Era
The dreadful record had a silver lining,
however, for it earned Minneapolis the No. 1 pick in the
1958 NBA Draft. The Lakers came away with Seattle University
star Elgin Baylor. With the unbeatable combination of a
great scoring touch, smooth ballhandling and passing skills,
a willingness to pound the boards, and the seeming ability
to defy gravity on the way to the hoop, the 6-5 forward
helped usher in a new era for the struggling Lakers franchise.
In his rookie campaign Baylor finished fourth
in the league in scoring (24.9 ppg) and third in rebounding
(15.0 rpg). He also led the club in assists with 4.1 per
game. Powered by the league's newest superstar (and that
season's Rookie of the Year), Minneapolis won 14 more games
than the year before and finished with a 33-39 record, good
for second place in the Western Division behind the St.
Louis Hawks.
The Lakers dispatched the Detroit Pistons
in the division semifinals, then moved on to face St. Louis
in the Western Division Finals. By all accounts the series
was little more than a warm-up for defending NBA-champion
St. Louis. The Hawks had breezed through the regular season
with a 49-23 record and were looking forward to a rematch
with the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals.
However, behind Baylor and Vern Mikkelsen,
who was the last link to the glory years of the Mikan-era
Lakers, Minneapolis stunned the Hawks. St. Louis owned a
two-games-to-one series lead heading into Game 4, but the
Lakers took that game by 10 points and then earned a one-point
overtime victory in Game 5. They completed the upset with
a 106-104 triumph in Game 6.
The Lakers ran out of gas in the 1959 NBA
Finals, however. They faced the Celtics, who owned an 18-game
winning streak against Minneapolis and had demolished the
Lakers, 173-139, in the teams' last meeting. When the dust
settled, the Celtics' winning streak was still intact-Boston
swept the series in four straight.
Still, the Lakers' season had to be counted
as a great success. After finishing with the league's worst
record the year before, they had bounced all the way back
to the NBA Finals.
After the Lakers' great playoff run in 1959,
the 1959-60 regular season was a bust. Head Coach John Kundla
was replaced by John Castellani, who had been Baylor's college
coach. The team managed a dismal 11-25 record under Castellani's
command, and he was replaced by Jim Pollard, who had played
alongside George Mikan in the early years of the NBA. Pollard
fared no better, and the Lakers finished with a 25-50 mark.
Only Baylor managed to shine-he pumped in 29.6 points and
snared 16.4 rebounds per game.
Despite the difficult regular season, the
Lakers made the playoffs because they had the third-best
record in a four-team division. (The Cincinnati Royals were
worse at 19-56.) After making short work of second-place
Detroit in the division semifinals, they headed to St. Louis
for a rematch of the previous year's Western Division Finals.
Minneapolis got ahead, three games to two, but the Hawks
avoided embarrassment for a second straight year by posting
a 21-point win in Game 6 and then ousting the Lakers with
a 97-86 victory in Game 7.
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1960-62: A Double
Dose Of West
During the offseason the Lakers became the
NBA's first West Coast team. Although Minneapolis fans had
come out in droves to watch the Lakers when Mikan was with
the club, attendance had fallen off dramatically in the
ensuing five seasons. Even the presence of Elgin Baylor
hadn't made much of a difference. Meanwhile, Major League
Baseball's Dodgers had moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles
in 1958 and had become a huge financial success. Lakers
owner Bob Short, a shrewd young businessman from Minneapolis
who had owned the franchise for two years, packed up the
club and moved it to Los Angeles before the 1960-61 season.
That wasn't the only important change for
the franchise during the offseason. The Lakers' 25-50 record
the previous year had given the club the No. 2 pick in the
NBA Draft. The prize was 6-21/2 guard Jerry West, a talented
playmaker and scorer. West's former coach at West Virginia,
Fred Schaus, was installed at the Lakers' helm.
Baylor was a scoring machine and a terror
on the boards for the new Los Angeles Lakers. He averaged
34.8 points and 19.8 rebounds in 1960-61. West struggled
for the first half of the season before hitting his stride,
finishing his first NBA campaign averaging 17.6 points.
The two players combined to boost the Lakers to a 36-43
record and a second-place finish in the Western Division.
The Lakers faced the Pistons in the opening
round of the playoffs. In an era of rampant scoring, the
two teams lit up the scoreboard. Los Angeles posted 120
points in each of the first two games and won both. Back
in Detroit, the Pistons won Game 3, 124-113, and Game 4,
123-114. The Lakers closed out the series with a 137-120
shoot-out in the final game.
That meant a Lakers-Hawks matchup in the
Western Division Finals for the third year in a row. St.
Louis had finished the regular season 15 games ahead of
Los Angeles and was heavily favored, but the series was
a dogfight. The Hawks managed a one-point victory in Game
4 to even the series at two games apiece. After the Lakers
took Game 5, St. Louis eked out a 114-113 overtime win in
Game 6 and a 105-103 victory in Game 7 to move on to the
Finals.
Los Angeles played with a slight handicap
during the 1961-62 season. Elgin Baylor was one of only
two NBA players called to active military duty in the wake
of the Berlin crisis. (Lenny Wilkens was the other.) For
much of the campaign Baylor was only available on weekends.
Still, in 48 games he averaged 38.3 points. Meanwhile, West
exploded for a 30.8 average in his second year.
The high-scoring duo was ably supported.
The cast included 6-8 Rudy LaRusso, a third-year forward
who chipped in 17.2 points and 10.4 rebounds per game. Frank
Selvy, a much-traveled veteran who had played with six teams
in his first five seasons in the NBA before settling in
with the Lakers, added 14.7 points per game at guard. A
solid bench featured Rodney "Hot Rod" Hundley and Tom Hawkins.
Los Angeles dominated the Western Division,
topping second-place Cincinnati by 11 games. Up against
Detroit in the division finals, the Lakers trounced the
Pistons in the first three games of the series, lost Games
4 and 5, and then ousted Detroit in Game 6.
The NBA Finals pitted the Lakers against
the Boston Celtics, and the series opened in Boston, where
the teams split two games. The Lakers won Game 3 in Los
Angeles, thanks to a last-second steal and a layup by Jerry
West. The Celtics evened the series with a win in Game 4.
Game 5, which was played in Boston, saw Baylor pour in 61
points to set a playoff record that stood for a quarter
of a century. The teams headed to Los Angeles with the Lakers
up three games to two and poised to clinch the championship
on their home court. But the Celtics pushed the series to
the limit with a 119-105 win.
Game 7 ranks as one of the most exciting
championship games of all time. The score was knotted at
100 apiece when Selvy put up a shot that slid off the rim
as time expired. Had the shot fallen, the Lakers would have
claimed the crown. Instead, the game moved into overtime,
and the Celtics outscored the Lakers, 10-7, to win the game
and the NBA Championship.
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1962-65: The
Start Of A Trend: Celtics Clip Lakers For NBA Title
The Lakers added Dick Barnett to their roster
during the offseason. Barnett, who had spent the previous
two seasons with Syracuse, moved into the starting lineup
at guard, and Selvy became the team's sixth man. Barnett
averaged 18.0 points during 1962-63, and his contribution
became critical when Jerry West missed 27 games with a leg
injury. West still finished with 27.1 points per game, while
Elgin Baylor poured in 34.0 points per contest to finish
second in the league in scoring behind the San Francisco
Warriors' Wilt Chamberlain.
Los Angeles finished 53-27, repeating as Western
Division champs. The Lakers then earned a rematch against
the Celtics for the NBA crown by besting St. Louis in the
Western Division Finals. But the Celtics, in the midst of
a string of 11 championships in 13 seasons, continued to
hold the upper hand, winning the series in six games.
The Lakers' two-year reign atop the Western
Division came to an end during the 1963-64 season. West
(28.7 ppg) and Baylor (25.4 ppg) finished fifth and sixth
in the league in scoring, respectively. But the team was
weak in the middle. Starting center Gene Wiley averaged
only 4.3 points, and Los Angeles placed third in the division
with a 42-38 record. The Lakers failed to get by the St.
Louis Hawks in the first round of the playoffs.
Los Angeles rebounded from a relatively disappointing
year by posting a 14-6 record to open the 1964-65 season.
The Lakers then coasted to a 49-31 overall mark and their
third division title in four years. As usual, West (31.0
ppg, second in the NBA) and Baylor (27.1 ppg, fifth) provided
the firepower. The Lakers had a surprisingly tough time
with Baltimore in the Western Division Finals, needing six
games to win the series and advance.
The NBA Finals, which pitted the Lakers against
the Celtics, was a lopsided affair. Baylor went down with
a knee injury and was unable to play in the series. West
did his best to make up for Baylor's absence by averaging
40.6 points during the postseason, but he couldn't do it
alone. Boston humiliated Los Angeles in Game 1, 142-110.
Only a token Lakers win in Game 3 prevented a sweep. The
Celtics finished off Los Angeles in Game 5 with a 33-point
rout.
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1965-68: Cooke
Purchases Lakers For $5 Million
The Lakers franchise changed hands during
the offseason when Bob Short sold the club to Jack Kent
Cooke. Cooke paid $5 million for the team, which not only
represented a huge profit but also established that the
value of an NBA franchise was on par with the value of a
Major League Baseball team.
Cooke left the team virtually intact. Center
Darrall Imhoff and guard Walt Hazzard, who had been backups
the season before, moved into the starting lineup for the
1965-66 season. Bob Boozer came to Los Angeles from New
York and proved to be a valuable addition when sore knees
sidelined Baylor. The Lakers also featured a promising young
rookie from UCLA named Gail Goodrich.
Baylor had a tough season. Knee problems
limited him to 65 games, and after scoring at least 24 points
per game in each of his first seven seasons, his output
dipped to just 16.6 points per contest. West (31.3 ppg)
was as irrepressible as ever, trailing only Wilt Chamberlain
in the NBA scoring race. The Lakers came away with the Western
Division title but never really put together a hot streak
during the regular season. Their best month was November,
when they went 10-7. But they barely played above the .500
mark for the next three months and finished 45-35.
Los Angeles moved on to the postseason and
bested the Hawks in seven games to reach the NBA Finals.
Facing the Celtics for the fourth time in five years, Los
Angeles stole Game 1 in an overtime thriller, then dropped
three straight. Wins in Games 5 and 6 sent the series to
a seventh game. Once again the Celtics prevailed, this time
by the score of 95-93. Since 1959 the Lakers had faced Boston
in the NBA Finals five times and had come away losers each
time.
The Lakers stumbled out of contention in
the 1966-67 campaign. Injuries kept Jerry West on the sidelines
for 15 games and Elgin Baylor out of action for 11. The
squad finished in third place in the Western Division and
chalked up a losing record (36-45) for the first time since
the 1960-61 campaign. San Francisco made short work of Los
Angeles in the playoffs, ousting the Lakers in a three-game
sweep.
That season ended Fred Schaus's reign as
the team's head coach. The Lakers' pilot since the move
to Los Angeles, he had guided them to the NBA Finals four
times. His replacement was Bill "Butch" van Breda Kolff,
who started the season in the new 17,500-seat Forum.
West missed 31 games during the 1967-68 campaign
with injuries, but second-year guard Archie Clark blossomed
into an offensive threat, averaging 19.9 points. Baylor
led the team in scoring (26.0 ppg) and rebounding (12.2
rpg). The club improved by 16 games over the previous season,
to 52-30, but finished in second place in the division behind
St. Louis. The Lakers dispatched the Chicago Bulls in the
division semifinals, then breezed by San Francisco in the
division finals. That set up a sixth meeting between Los
Angeles and Boston in the NBA Finals, and once again the
Celtics came out on top, this time taking the series in
six games.
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1968-69: L.A.
Acquires A Supercenter
By now it had become clear to everyone that
the Lakers were missing the one ingredient they needed to
nail down a championship-a dominating center to complement
West and Baylor. And time was running out-Baylor was 34
years old and playing on gimpy legs, and West was 30. So
owner Jack Kent Cooke filled the gap by wresting supercenter
Wilt Chamberlain away from the Philadelphia 76ers for Clark,
Darrall Imhoff, and Jerry Chambers.
The 1968-69 Lakers weren't the dominating
force that everyone expected them to be after the arrival
of Chamberlain, but they did take the Western Division title
with a 55-27 record. Chamberlain led the league in rebounding
with 21.1 boards per game while West and Baylor each averaged
better than 20 points.
In the playoffs the Lakers dropped the first
two games of their division semifinal matchup with the San
Francisco Warriors. But Los Angeles stormed back to win
the next four, including a 118-78 romp in Game 6, and take
the series, four games to two. The Hawks (now playing in
Atlanta) came next, and the Lakers dispatched them in five
games. That set up yet another Celtics-Lakers showdown,
but with a new twist-a clash of the titans, with Chamberlain
going up against old nemesis Bill Russell.
Los Angeles took the first two games and
appeared to have a good chance at ending the Celtics' dominance.
But Boston won Game 3 and then eked out a win in Game 4
after Sam Jones hit a shot at the buzzer to give the Celtics
an 89-88 victory. The series went to seven games, with the
deciding contest played at the Forum in Los Angeles. The
Celtics built a 17-point fourth-quarter lead and then held
on to win by two points. For the sixth time in eight years
the Lakers had butted heads with the Celtics in the NBA
Finals and had come away without a championship. Jerry West
earned the first-ever NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award.
It was the only time the award was given to a member of
the losing team.
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1969-71: West
Cans Miracle Shot, But Reed Is The Real Hero
Coach Butch van Breda Kolff stepped down
after the Finals and was replaced by Joe Mullaney, who took
over a team that was badly bitten by the injury bug during
the 1969-70 campaign. Chamberlain tore up his knee in the
ninth game of the season and was lost until the playoffs.
Baylor's injured knees limited him to 54 games. That placed
most of the burden on West, who led the league with an average
of 31.2 points. He couldn't keep the team at the top of
the Western Division, however, and the Lakers finished with
a 46-36 record, two games behind Atlanta.
Chamberlain and Baylor both recovered
in time for the playoffs, but the Lakers nearly faced elimination
at the hands of the Phoenix Suns in the division semifinals.
Down three games to one, Los Angeles rallied with convincing
wins in the final three games to take the series in seven.
The Lakers then swept Atlanta in the division finals and
moved on to face not the Celtics but the New York Knicks
in the NBA Finals.
It was a dream matchup for the league, pitting
the two most glamorous teams from America's two largest
cities against each other. The Lakers and the Knicks split
the first two games. In Game 3 at the Forum, Jerry West
provided one of the most memorable moments in Finals history
when he sank a 60-foot shot at the buzzer to send the game
into overtime. New York won the game, 111-108, but West's
miraculous heave helped earn him the nickname "Mr. Clutch."
Unfortunately for the Lakers, the Knicks'
Willis Reed upstaged West with a memorable moment of his
own. After Los Angeles evened the series with an overtime
victory in Game 4, the teams returned to New York for Game
5. In the first half of that game Reed went down with a
torn thigh muscle and didn't return. Despite trailing by
13 points at halftime, New York rallied without its center
to post a 107-100 victory. Reed sat out Game 6, and the
Lakers rolled to a 135-113 victory behind Wilt Chamberlain,
who had 45 points and 27 rebounds, and West, who had 31
points and 13 assists.
It looked as if the Knicks would be without
Reed in the deciding game. Then, moments before tip-off
amid a deafening roar from the crowd at Madison Square Garden,
Reed hobbled onto the court. He then scored the first two
baskets of the game before returning to the bench, but the
damage was done. With the crowd and Reed's teammates inspired,
the Lakers fell, 113-99. For the seventh time in nine years
the team had reached the Finals and come away empty.
The 1970-71 season saw the league expand
to 17 teams and four divisions. Los Angeles was put into
the Pacific Division alongside San Francisco, the San Diego
Rockets, the Seattle SuperSonics, and the Portland Trail
Blazers. The Lakers had Wilt Chamberlain back and healthy,
but Elgin Baylor played in only two games because of ongoing
knee problems. The team was helped by the addition of Harold
"Happy" Hairston, who had joined the club midway through
the previous season, and Gail Goodrich, who returned to
Los Angeles after two years in Phoenix. Future Lakers Coach
Pat Riley was acquired from Portland as a player.
With Baylor missing, West (26.9 ppg), Chamberlain
(20.7 ppg), Hairston (18.6 ppg), and Goodrich (17.5 ppg)
picked up the scoring slack. Chamberlain led the league
in rebounding with 18.2 boards per game. The Lakers finished
48-34 and won the Pacific Division, seven games ahead of
second-place San Francisco. Los Angeles squeaked by the
Chicago Bulls in a tough conference semifinal series, then
fell to Lew Alcindor (soon to be known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)
and the Milwaukee Bucks in the Western Conference Finals.
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1971-73: 33
In A Row!
Owner Jack Kent Cooke replaced Head Coach
Joe Mullaney in 1971-72, bringing in former USC star and
Celtics standout Bill Sharman. The team had to make do without
Baylor, who retired early in the season after realizing
that his legs were not going to hold up through another
year. The Lakers may have lost Baylor, but they did have
a balanced, mature, and experienced team with Hairston and
second-year player Jim McMillian as forwards, Chamberlain
in the pivot, and West and Goodrich at the guard spots.
The Lakers went 6-3 through the first month
of the season. On November 5 they beat Baltimore, 110-106,
marking the first of 14 straight wins in November. December
saw them take 16 games without a loss. Along the way, the
Lakers shattered the NBA mark of 20 consecutive victories
set by the Milwaukee Bucks just one season before. Los Angeles
won three straight to open the new year before the Bucks
finally ended the string on January 9, besting the Lakers,
120-104. At that point the Lakers had rung up a 33-game
winning streak, an American professional sports record.
The team rolled on to a 69-win year, setting
a new NBA record for victories in a season, a record that
would stand until the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls went 72-10.
Chamberlain averaged a career-low 14.8 points, but it may
nevertheless have been his finest season-he led the league
in rebounding with 19.2 per game, was a defensive stalwart,
and played outstanding team basketball. West led the league
by dishing out 9.7 assists per game, and he and Goodrich
each averaged better than 25 points. The team paced the
league in points, rebounds, and assists. At season's end,
Bill Sharman was named NBA Coach of the Year.
The Lakers breezed right through the playoffs,
sweeping the Chicago Bulls in the conference semifinals,
ousting the Bucks in six games in the conference finals,
and then zipping by the Knicks in the Finals, four games
to one. After years of frustration the Lakers had finally
earned an NBA Championship, the team's first in Los Angeles
and the first for the franchise since 1954. Chamberlain
was named Most Valuable Player of the Finals.
The Lakers didn't match their record pace
of the previous season during the 1972-73 campaign (although
they won all 12 of their games in November), but they did
roll to another Pacific Division title by winning 60 games
overall. Wilt Chamberlain, playing in his final season,
led the league in rebounding for the 11th time in his career.
He also became the first player in NBA history to record
a field-goal percentage above .700 -he finished at .727.
Los Angeles needed seven games to get by
the Chicago Bulls in the conference semifinals, but they
then breezed past the Golden State Warriors in the Western
Division Finals. That set up an NBA Finals rematch between
the Lakers and the New York Knicks. Los Angeles took the
first game by three points, but the Knicks employed a pressing,
trapping defense that forced the Lakers into an average
of 19 turnovers and held them under 100 points in each of
the final four games. New York took the series in five games
to wrest the title away from the defending champions.
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1973-75: Wilt
Retires, West Shortly Follows Suit
Chamberlain, now 37 years old, retired. He
left the NBA with a career average of 30.1 points per game.
Of the 57 top scoring performances in NBA history, he had
accounted for 47. In 14 years he had accumulated more than
31,000 points and had pulled down more than 23,000 rebounds.
He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall
of Fame in 1978.
For the 1973-74 season the Lakers picked
up promising young defensive center Elmore Smith to plug
the hole in the middle, and they also acquired Connie Hawkins
to add some punch to the offense. But the team was hampered
by the loss of Jerry West, who lasted only 31 games before
his 35-year-old legs finally gave out. By that point the
team's real star was Gail Goodrich, who averaged 25.3 points
and helped engineer a late-season surge.
Trailing Golden State by three games with
seven left to play, the Lakers rallied to win the Pacific
Division with a 47-35 record, three games ahead of the Warriors.
Los Angeles advanced to the postseason but managed only
one win against Milwaukee in the conference semifinals.
The 1974-75 season found the Lakers in transition.
West had retired after 14 incredible seasons in a Los Angeles
uniform. Mr. Clutch had led the Lakers to the playoffs in
every season of his career, including nine trips to the
NBA Finals. He was an All-Star all 14 seasons and an All-NBA
First Team selection 10 times. He finished with 25,192 career
points and an average of 27.0 points per game. Truly one
of the league's all-time greats, West scored more points
as a Laker than any other player in the franchise's history.
For 1974-75 the team signed Cazzie Russell,
who played just 40 games before a knee injury ended his
season. Despite the addition of Lucius Allen (19.5 ppg)
and another strong season from Goodrich (22.6), the club
posted its first losing record in eight seasons, at 30-52.
Los Angeles sat out the postseason for the first time in
17 years.
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1975-79: Los
Angeles Trades For Jabbar
During the offseason the Lakers made an acquisition
that laid the foundation for yet another championship-caliber
squad. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the league's premier big man,
made it known that he would not return to Milwaukee after
the 1974-75 season, demanding instead to be traded to either
New York (where he had grown up) or Los Angeles (where he
had attended college). He ended up going to the Lakers for
Elmore Smith, Brian Winters, Junior Bridgeman, and Dave
Meyers.
Abdul-Jabbar had an MVP season for Los Angeles
in 1975-76. He led the league in rebounding, blocked shots,
and minutes played and finished second in scoring and field-goal
percentage. But the big trade paid higher short-term dividends
for Milwaukee than it did for Los Angeles-the Bucks went
from last to first in the Midwest Division.
The Lakers stumbled through a 3-10 January
and finished out of the playoffs with a 40-42 record. At
season's end, Abdul-Jabbar won the fourth of six career
NBA Most Valuable Player Awards.
Jerry West replaced Bill Sharman as head
coach during the offseason. The club lost Gail Goodrich,
who signed with the New Orleans Jazz as a free agent. It
took another MVP season from Abdul-Jabbar to carry the team
back to the top of the Pacific Division, as the Lakers finished
1976-77 with a league-best 53-29 record. They barely survived
a tough seven-game series against the Warriors to open the
postseason before being defeated by Portland in the Western
Conference Finals. The Trail Blazers swept the Lakers en
route to an NBA Championship.
During the offseason the Lakers picked up
Jamaal Wilkes from Golden State and signed first-round draft
pick Norm Nixon. But the 1977-78 season got off to a horrendous
start. Just two minutes into the campaign's first game Abdul-Jabbar
punched Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation for an overly
aggressive elbow. Abdul-Jabbar broke his hand and was out
for two months.
Then, on December 9, the Lakers' Kermit Washington
got into a tussle with Kevin Kunnert of the Houston Rockets.
Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich ran downcourt to break up the
fight. Washington saw Tomjanovich running at him from behind
and responded with a devastating punch that nearly ended
Tomjanovich's career. Washington was fined and suspended
for 60 days. Tomjanovich missed the entire season and underwent
a series of operations to reconstruct his jaw, eye, and
cheek.
The Lakers struggled through the first half
of the season but rebounded to post a 28-13 mark during
the campaign's second half. A 45-37 record earned them a
matchup against Seattle in a best-of-three first-round playoff
series. The Sonics, on their way to the NBA Finals under
Coach Lenny Wilkens, eliminated Los Angeles.
Despite the early ouster, the pieces were
beginning to settle into place for the Lakers. During the
1978-79 season the team got a sneak preview of the future
with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jamaal Wilkes, and Norm Nixon
all turning in fine performances. The club posted a 47-35
record, then fell to the SuperSonics in the semifinal round
of the playoffs.
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1979: The Beginning
Of The Buss Era
During the offseason owner Jack Kent Cooke
sold his sports empire, which included the Lakers and the
Great Western Forum, to Santa Monica real estate developer
Jerry Buss for $67.5 million. Buss brought in Jack McKinney
as the new head coach.
When the Lakers had let Gail Goodrich go
to free agency prior to the 1976-77 season, they had no
idea how significant Goodrich's departure would be for the
team's future. Because Goodrich signed with the New Orleans
Jazz as a veteran free agent, the Jazz had to compensate
the Lakers. New Orleans did so by giving Los Angeles three
draft picks, including its first-round pick in 1979. When
the Jazz (who moved to Utah in 1979) finished with the league's
worst record in 1978-79, the Lakers found themselves holding
the No. 1 overall pick in the 1979 NBA Draft.
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1979-82: "Showtime"
Arrives
Los Angeles picked Earvin "Magic" Johnson,
an electrifying 6-9 point guard who had led Michigan State
to the 1979 NCAA Championship. "Showtime" had arrived, and
a dynasty was established almost overnight.
The 1979-80 season was one of intense drama
for the Lakers. With the team at 10-4, Head Coach Jack McKinney
suffered a serious injury in a bicycle accident and was
replaced by Paul Westhead. The Lakers rallied to finish
the season at 60-22, tops in the Pacific Division. Inspired
by NBA All-Rookie Team member Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar turned
in the best all-around performance of his career and earned
his sixth and final Most Valuable Player Award. The Lakers
were talented and deep-Jamaal Wilkes, Jim Chones, and Abdul-Jabbar
made for an intimidating front line, and the backcourt of
Johnson and Nixon could stand up to any guard tandem in
the country. The Lakers' bench included Michael Cooper and
Spencer Haywood.
Los Angeles walked all over Phoenix and Seattle
in the first two rounds of the playoffs, taking each series
in five games. The NBA Finals pitted the club against the
Julius Erving-led Philadelphia 76ers, and the two teams
split four close games to start the series. Abdul-Jabbar
sprained his ankle in Game 5 but still scored 40 points
to give the Lakers a 108-103 win.
Abdul-Jabbar was unable to play in Game 6,
but Johnson stepped up to turn in one of the most remarkable
performances in NBA Finals history. Still just a 20-year-old
rookie, Johnson moved from guard to center and tallied 42
points, 15 rebounds, and 7 assists, single-handedly carrying
the Lakers to a 123-107 victory and the NBA Championship.
Johnson earned the first of three NBA Finals Most Valuable
Player Awards.
The 1980-81 season was a major disappointment.
The Lakers lost Magic Johnson for much of the season to
a knee injury. Behind another brilliant year from Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar (26.2 ppg, 10.3 rpg), the team turned in a
54-28 record and finished second behind the Phoenix Suns
in the Pacific Division. But Los Angeles was stunned by
the Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs.
Led by Moses Malone, the Rockets bumped the Lakers in a
best-of-three series, notching both victories in Los Angeles.
Owner Jerry Buss fired Coach Paul Westhead
after the Lakers went 7-4 to start the 1981-82 season. Buss
promoted Assistant Coach Pat Riley, a former Lakers backup
point guard, to head coach on November 19, and the team
won 17 of its next 20 games.
The Lakers took the Pacific Division title
and then embarked on one of the most impressive playoff
journeys in NBA history. They swept both Phoenix and the
San Antonio Spurs with an average margin of victory of 11
points. Los Angeles then stretched its postseason winning
streak to nine games by taking the first contest of the
NBA Finals from the 76ers. Philadelphia came back to win
Game 2, but the Lakers prevailed in the series, four games
to two, to win their second title in three years. The team's
playoff record that year was 12-2.
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1982-83: A Worthy
Draft Pick
The Lakers found themselves with an embarrassment
of riches when, after winning the championship, they also
ended up with the first overall pick in the 1982 NBA Draft.
The situation was the result of a trade with Cleveland midway
through the 1979-80 season, when the Lakers had sent Don
Ford and a 1980 first-round pick (eventually Chad Kinch)
to the Cavaliers for Butch Lee and their 1982 selection.
Fortuitously for the Lakers, Cleveland had finished with
the league's worst record in 1981-82, giving Los Angeles
first crack at a talented crop of college players. It marked
the first time in NBA history that a reigning champion held
the No. 1 pick.
The Lakers used that pick to select forward
James Worthy, who had just led North Carolina to the 1982
NCAA Championship. Worthy, Magic Johnson, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
would define the powerhouse Lakers teams of the 1980s. Worthy
proved to be the perfect complement to both players, finishing
on the break for Johnson and stepping out to the perimeter
when Abdul-Jabbar needed room to maneuver inside.
Worthy's rookie year ended in disappointment,
however. He suffered a broken leg in the last week of the
regular season and had to watch the postseason from the
sidelines. The Lakers, who had won the Pacific Division
with a 58-24 record, advanced to the 1983 NBA Finals with
early-round victories against Portland and San Antonio.
But Los Angeles was no match for the Philadelphia 76ers,
who had acquired Moses Malone before the season. The Sixers
won the series and the championship in four straight games.
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1983-84: Abdul-Jabbar
Becomes NBA's All-Time Leading Scorer
During the offseason the Lakers sent Norm
Nixon to San Diego for Byron Scott. Los Angeles started
1983-84 at 12-4, but on December 2 Magic Johnson sustained
a dislocated right index finger and missed a month of action.
Although he led the league with 13.1 assists per game, Johnson's
injury prevented him from setting a probable NBA record
for total assists in a season. The Lakers garnered their
share of NBA records that year anyway. On April 5 Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar became the NBA's all-time leading scorer when
he scored point No. 31,420 against Utah to pass Wilt Chamberlain.
The Lakers reached the NBA Finals in 1984
by roaring past the Kansas City Kings, the Dallas Mavericks,
and the Phoenix Suns in the early rounds. That set up a
Larry Bird-Magic Johnson matchup as Los Angeles and Boston
squared off for the championship. Los Angeles took Game
1, then held a two-point lead in Game 2 with 15 seconds
remaining when Gerald Henderson picked off a James Worthy
pass and scored a layup to send the game into overtime.
Boston prevailed, 124-121, and then the teams split the
next four games. The Celtics had never lost Game 7 in an
NBA Finals series, and tradition held. Boston triumphed,
111-102.
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1984-86: Finally!
Lakers Beat Celtics In Finals
The Lakers cruised to a fourth straight Pacific
Division title in 1984-1985 despite losing Jamaal Wilkes
for the season in mid-February because of torn knee ligaments.
Los Angeles (62-20) took the division by an NBA-record 20
games. The club, at the height of its "Showtime" era, set
two other NBA marks by posting a phenomenal .545 team field-goal
percentage and handing out 2,575 assists.
Los Angeles reached the NBA Finals after
eliminating Phoenix, Portland, and the Denver Nuggets, chalking
up an 11-2 record on the way. Facing Boston again in the
championship round, the Lakers were humiliated in the first
game, 148-114, a contest remembered as the "Memorial Day
Massacre." But Los Angeles bounced back to take four of
the next five games, led by 38-year-old series MVP Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar. The 1985 series marked the ninth time that
Los Angeles and Boston had met in the NBA Finals but the
first time that the Lakers had come away with the crown.
Jamaal Wilkes left the Lakers before the
1985-86 season. (He played only 13 games with the Clippers
before retiring.) Los Angeles continued to rebuild, adding
33-year-old Maurice Lucas, who gave the team some muscle,
and rookie A. C. Green. The Lakers also had power forward
Kurt Rambis, a bespectacled, blue-collar fan favorite who
had joined the team in 1981. Rambis spent seven seasons
in a Los Angeles uniform.
The team got off to a blazing start, with
records of 11-1, 19-2, and 24-3 early in the season. Los
Angeles won 62 games for the second year in a row and finished
22 games ahead of second-place Portland in the Pacific Division.
Abdul-Jabbar was playing in an unprecedented 17th season,
and he set new NBA career records for minutes and games
played while averaging 23.4 points. Johnson paced the league
in assists (12.6 apg) for the third time in six seasons.
The Lakers seemed headed for an NBA Finals
rematch with the Boston Celtics, who had ripped through
the Eastern Conference with a 67-15 record. The Celtics
lost only one game en route to the Finals, but the Lakers
failed to hold up their part of the bargain. After eliminating
San Antonio and Dallas in the first two rounds, Los Angeles
met Houston in the Western Conference Finals. Led by twin
towers Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson, the Rockets took
a surprising series lead after four games. But the teams
headed back to Los Angeles for Game 5, where the Lakers
expected to regain the momentum. Instead, Sampson stunned
the Lakers with a miraculous turnaround jump shot at the
buzzer, breaking a 112-112 tie to give Houston the series
victory. The Rockets managed two victories against the Celtics
in the Finals but lost the series.
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