In the history of the NBA for half a century, the Los Angeles Lakers have been one of the hottest teams in the league, from the beginning of the birth of this team, the purple and gold aristocratic blood has been flowing in the body of every team that plays for the Lakers, as of the 2014-2015 season, the Lakers have entered the NBA playoffs a total of 56 times, 31 Western Conference championships, and the 16 championship flags hoisted in the Staples Center are second only to the Celtics Boston Square Garden 17 in the league, It is no exaggeration to say that the Lakers have become the banner of the NBA, although the Lakers' record has not been ideal for various reasons in recent years, but this has not wiped out the love for the Lakers in the hearts of the majority of fans, because of love, because of faith, every fan who loves the Lakers believes that the Lakers will always rise one day, reach the playoffs, win the championship, just like at the beginning of the century - the OK combination fell apart, but in just seven years, the team stood on the highest stage of the NBA again!

Founded in 1947 in Minneapolis, the latter is now the capital of Minnesota and the largest city in the state, but it was not the case at the time, because the Mississippi River runs through Minneapolis, and the city is also adjacent to the Great Lakes, so the summer air here is hot, Minneapolis is in the same latitude as Harbin, China, the winter is extremely cold, heavy snow is often a few days and nights, it is also one of the cities with the most natural disasters such as tornadoes, hailstorms, thunderstorms and so on, therefore, Under the conditions at the time, it was not suitable for high-calorie sports such as basketball.

Minneapolis' population is complex and diverse, and most of the ancestors are refugees from five continents, so the people here yearn for peace, are open-minded, and like to accept new things, so although it is not suitable for the development of basketball, they still successfully formed an amateur basketball team in 1947, named the Lakers, which means the team of people living on the shores of the Great Lakes. Become one of the most successful and well-known teams in the league and become the highest temple in the hearts of teams around the world.

In 1948, the Minneapolis Lakers became the first team to enter the NBA, the first star in the team at that time was George McCann, at the same time, he was also the first real superstar in NBA history, McCann was 208 cm tall, this height was a giant at the time, as long as McCann appeared under the basket, it was almost impossible to stop him from putting the basketball in the basket, the first season of the NBA, and also McCann's first season, he won the MVP of the NBA league, and sent the Lakers to the championship with an average of 30 points per game, thus starting the glorious history of the Lakers in 6 years and 5 championships.

Because McCann is too powerful in the league, in order to prevent the game from becoming McCann's one-man game, the league has issued many rules that are "tailor-made" for McCann, such as lengthening the distance between the free throw line and the restricted area, such as interfering with the ball, and then 3-second violations.

It is worth mentioning that although McCann was very powerful when he was young, but his later life was very bleak, because the NBA's player welfare system was not so developed at that time, so although McCann was famous outside Beijing, he actually had a very small salary, that is, ordinary salarymen, because of playing and unsystematic training, McCann also fell into an injury, and McCann only had a pension of $1000 a month in his later years, but he was suffering from diabetes and kidney failure, because of the former, he even lost a leg, On June 12, 2005, McCann passed away at the age of 80, and his family was so poor that he could not even pay for McCann's funeral, which was eventually paid by Shaquille O'Neal.

In 1958, the Lakers selected Elgin Baylor with a bitter gourd face with the first pick in the first round of the NBA draft, Baylor played for the Lakers for 12 years, which opened the Lakers' record of not winning a championship for 12 consecutive seasons, Baylor retired in 1972, and the Lakers won the championship in 1973.

Baylor did not win the championship not to say that he is not capable enough, when later generations talk about this history, they will always use "born at the wrong time" to describe Baylor, just like Zhou Yu who has been suppressed by Zhuge Liang in the Three Kingdoms, in fact, Baylor is a very good player, Baylor is not selected by a professional basketball team, but from a small place called "Entertainment Basketball League" to make a name for himself, and then attracted the attention of scouts from all sides, Baylor is a forward, 195 cm tall may be a little short in this position, But he holds the Lakers' highest rebounding record, a record that even Abdul-Jabbar, who has been with the Lakers for 14 years, has not broken it, Baylor can be regarded as a street ball on the offensive end, Baylor has the ability to play with dribbles, Baylor's bounce is very good, although there is no specific body side data, but people who have seen Baylor "fly" up have compared him to Jordan, his mid-range shooting is very accurate, and more importantly, Baylor's off-ball running is absolutely phenomenal, He was able to read the opponent's defensive strategy and find the flaws, and Baylor was able to score easily under heavy defense.

In the year before Baylor came to the Minneapolis Lakers, McCann's performance on the court was already dying, his record was declining, and the fans didn't buy it - tickets were the main way for the team to make money, and the Lakers realized that if this continued, the team would definitely not last long before disbanding, so they brought in Elgin Baylor, who was fancy with dribbling and super ability. It can be said that the Lakers at that time bet all their belongings on Baylor, and it turns out that they chose the right person.

In his debut season, Baylor scored the third-highest score in NBA history with 55 points, averaging 25 points and 15 rebounds per game, and the team made it all the way to the Finals, but they lost to the Boston Celtics who started a nine-game winning streak.

In the 1959-1960 season, Baylor averaged 30 points and 17 rebounds per game, and the team stopped in the division finals, and there were some off-court things this season, and on January 17, 1960, the Lakers received a 119-135 rout in St. Louis, and after taking a shower, the Lakers would include trainers, scouts, and a group of more than 20 people on the plane home.

At that time, the owner of the Lakers was called Bob Schute, he was a very thrifty or very picky owner, the team's plane was already a model that should have been eliminated thirty years ago, but until the sixties, the Lakers were still in use, the plane was attacked by a snowstorm at an altitude of 10,000 feet, and the thick ice and snow made all the parts of the plane unable to work except for the engine and generator, including the inability to lower the landing gear, the plane hovered over Minneapolis and could not land, Seeing that the plane's fuel tank was about to bottom out, the flight was forced to land in a cornfield in Carroll Town, the Lakers narrowly escaped a "catastrophe", and after returning home, Bob Schutte was so shocked that he immediately ordered the whole team to be relocated, moving the team from Minneapolis, a bitter cold place, to the big city of Los Angeles.

It is worth mentioning that the NBA league received the impact of this incident and urgently issued a "disaster clause", the central idea of which is that when a team in the league suffers a devastating disaster, everyone on the team can immediately carry out the expansion draft, and the other teams only have five more players per team to be protected, and other players will be selected by the expansion draft, and in the next year's draft, the expansion team still has the unconditional champion pick, fortunately, until half a century today, no team can be "lucky" Use this clause.

In his first season in Los Angeles, Baylor felt like he had been reborn – he was strong before, but now he's stronger! He was able to score 34 points and grab 19 rebounds in every game, including 71 points and 25 rebounds in a game against the Knicks, setting a single-game scoring record at the time, but in the playoffs, the Lakers lost to the Hawks again in seven games.

After this season, the Lakers' second rookie selected last year began to get on the right track, and his strong outburst allowed the Lakers to no longer rely on Baylor's single-core offense, but to operate in pairs, last season the rookie averaged "only" 17 points per game, but after one season, he can average 30 points per game!

This rookie is Jerry West, West is a talented player, his style of play is beautiful and flowing, but not losing the toughness, jump shot accurate, he can shoot a lot of shots that are farther away from the current three-point line, but there was no concept of the three-point line at that time, so West's three-point shooting percentage is really not exquisite, this year Baylor only played 48 games because of his military service, he averaged 38 points per game, West, on the other hand, averaged 30.8 points, 7.9 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game, and frequently hit key shots at the end of the game, and was dubbed "Mr. Key" by fans.

In Game 4 of the 1961-1962 Finals, Baylor scored 61 points, setting a record for individual scoring in a single NBA playoff game, and he averaged 40.6 points per game in this round of the series! In this game, the Lakers won a big score of 3-2 lead, and it seemed that victory was in sight, but then the Celtics won two games in a row and snatched the championship from the arms of the Lakers!

Stage a comeback? Who knew this was just the beginning! On the floor of the Finals in the following seven seasons, the Lakers faced the Celtics five times, losing them all! Although the combination of Baylor and West is becoming more and more proficient, although the Lakers also invited Wilt Chamberlain at the end of his career, but still can't get rid of the fate of losing, I have to say that Baylor is really a very psychologically endurable person, eight times into the finals, eight defeats, this has to be replaced by others, it has long collapsed, but Baylor in his twilight years still maintained strong self-confidence until he had to leave the game because of injury.

At the beginning of the 1971-1972 season, Baylor was not as good as before due to a serious knee injury, averaging only 11 points per game, and after nine games, a disheartened Baylor announced his retirement - he could have announced this decision after the end of the season, but he didn't, and after Baylor's retirement, the Lakers really became West's one-man team. Jim McMillan, who averaged just 8.4 points per game, became the starter, and the Lakers exploded into an amazing fight, they went on a 33-game winning streak and beat the New York Knicks 4-1 in the Finals that year, West got the first and only championship ring of his career, but Baylor - if he announced his retirement after the season, the ring should have his name on it, but now you ......

What is not known to the world is that after this season, the Lakers made a championship ring for Baylor in recognition of Baylor's contribution to the team, but this is nothing to make up, when later generations talk about Baylor, they will always habitually crown the hat of "uncrowned king", Baylor played in the NBA for 14 seasons, averaging more than 27 points per game, but these did not change back a championship ring, which can not but be said to be a huge regret.

The year the Lakers won the championship, there was another person who had to be mentioned, he was Gail Goodrich, Goodrich was only 185 cm tall, but weighed more than 200 pounds, he belonged to the kind of player who knew the style of play just by looking at his size, he only had one effective way to score in the game, that is, with his strong weight to force a breakthrough to the inside, crushing the opponent, Goodrich played for the Lakers in the first three seasons of the NBA, but was selected by the Suns in the Suns' expansion draft, In the 1970-1971 season, he was traded back to the Lakers by the Suns, and at this time, Goodrich was already an efficient and all-round scorer who could score 20 points per game, and his arrival just made up for Baylor's aging vacancy and became Jerry West's most reliable helper.

West of that era is also aging, three seasons later, West announced his retirement, a Goodrich obviously can't support the team, the Lakers fell into a slump, but the Lakers didn't let fans like him wait long, in 1976, a person with a name and specialty transferred to join the Lakers, he was the top pick in 1969, he averaged 29 points and 15 rebounds per game in his rookie season, and the second season was the regular season MVP, the championship, and the Finals MVP. In his third season, he won the regular season MVP and scoring title, in his fourth season, he lifted the regular season MVP trophy for the third time, and in his fifth season, he came to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he was Ferdinand Lewis Ascindor and later renamed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

In the 1979 draft, the Lakers drafted a player who was 206 centimeters tall but reported "PG" on the declaration table, he was called Elvin Hayes, nicknamed "The Magic".

In addition to Abdul-Jabbar and Johnson, the Lakers at the time also had a future Hall of Famer, who was the down-to-earth Jamal Wilkes, and the three formed the feared trident of the league at the time.

During Johnson's regular season with the Lakers, he played every position from the No. 1 to the No. 4 position, and he did quite well, this year, he averaged 18 points, 7.7 rebounds and 7.3 assists per game. At that time, the Lakers played all the way to the Finals, the opponent was the Philadelphia 76ers, the fifth game of the battle of King Mountain, relying on Abdul-Jabbar's 24 points and 10 rebounds, the Lakers won with difficulty, but before the start of the fifth game, Abdul-Jabbar had to take a break because of a serious ankle injury, Hayes was in danger, he was pushed to the No. 5 position for the first time, facing a group of muscles taller than him and stronger than him, and finally, in the crucial sixth game, Johnson cut 42 points and 15 rebounds in the final moments of the game, Johnson reproduced Abdul-Jabbar's trademark hook to put the ball in the basket to kill the game!

For the first time, the Lakers brought the championship trophy to Los Angeles!

In the 1981-1982 season, at the age of 34, Abdul-Jabbar's form began to decline, and he averaged "only" 24 points and 8 rebounds per game, but Wilkes and Johnson supported the team, the former averaging 21 points and the latter 18 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds, and the Lakers defeated the 76ers again in the finals to win the second championship.

The legend continues, on April 5, 1984, Abdul-Jabbar scored his 31,420th point in the NBA in a matchup with the Utah Jazz, surpassing Wilt Chamberlain and becoming the NBA's leading scorer.

In 1981, the Lakers began to hire the "God Operator" Pat Riley as the team's head coach, under the meshing of Pat Riley, the Lakers became the representative team of the "Showtime" at that time, in the 1985 Finals, the Lakers played against the Celtics for the ninth time, the first eight defeats and Abdul-Jabbar's 38-year-old age made the world not optimistic about the Lakers winning the championship, sure enough, the first game of the Celtics' "Chief" Robert Parish broke Abdul-Jabbar, who only got a mere 12 points and 3 rebounds in the whole game, The team was bloodied 118-148, this game was called the "game of slaughter day", Abdul-Jabbar felt humiliated, so he trained frantically for the next two days to maintain his strength, and finally, in the second game, Abdul-Jabbar had 30 points, 17 rebounds, 8 assists and 3 blocks to lead the team to a 109-102 victory over the Celtics. In the end, driven by Abdul-Jabbar's average of 30.2 points, 11.3 rebounds, 6.5 assists and 2 blocks per game, the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Bostonians on the stage of the Finals for the first time since moving to Los Angeles, and Magic Johnson averaged 17.5 points, 15.5 assists and 6.1 rebounds per game in this round of the series, while Big Bird Larry Bird's statistics were 26.8 points, 9.8 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game.

From 1979 to 1989, the strong Lakers reached the NBA Finals eight times in this decade, winning five of them, Johnson's matchup with Big Bird Larry Bird became the main theme of the NBA throughout the eighties, Bird ran and jumped in general, but he was strong enough, good at fighting for rebounds, shooting was incomprehensible, and no one could prevent small throws on his back, while Johnson reached out more comprehensively, and his assist ability was super strong, the only fly in the ointment was that Johnson was poor three-point shooting ability, Tall and unusually flexible when he breaks through, these factors limit Johnson's scoring ability. In the evaluation of NBA honors, most people pay more attention to the scoring ability of players, so before 1987, Johnson and Larry Bird had a 0-3 ratio of MVPs, but in 1987, Johnson won his first regular season MVP with an average of 23.2 points, 12.2 assists, 7.7 rebounds and a super high shooting rate of 53.9%.

At this time, the 40-year-old Abdul-Jabbar was on the verge of retirement, Johnson became the absolute leader of the Lakers, he taught Johnson his lifelong running hook, and the latter quickly mastered it, in the fourth game of the 1987 Finals, Johnson scored the killer shot with a big hook, so that the Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics again 107-106, and the 1983 champion James Worthy broke out in the 1987 playoffs after a five-year season of steady promotion. He averaged a team-high 23.6 points per game and shot 59.1% from the field! Johnson averaged 21.8 points and 12.4 assists per game, matching Bird's 26 points and 9.1 rebounds per game, but Johnson won, beating Bird for the second time in three years, beating Bird and winning the championship and Finals MVP.

In the 1988-1989 season, the Lakers reached the Finals again, this time they were sniped by the Detroit Pistons, this season was Abdul-Jabbar's last season, Johnson and the team's No. 3 scorer Byron Scott were injured one after another, James Worthy and Abdul-Jabbar were alone, and the Finals were swept 0:4, but the fourth game of the Finals is more memorated, because this game was the last game of Abdul-Jabbar's twenty-year career, he scored 7 points and 3 rebounds, In the final moments of the game, when Abdul-Jabbar was substituted, even though it was an away game, all the fans still stood up, applauded and cheered for Abdul-Jabbar for three minutes, and the game had to be suspended, and everyone sent their best wishes to Abdul-Jabbar.

Abdul-Jabbar is the first player in NBA history to play 20 seasons, playing a career-high 57,446 minutes, he scored 38,387 points and is also the first in history, while also contributing 17,440 rebounds and 3,189 blocks, both of which are third all-time, in addition to statistics, Abdul-Jabbar also created a formidable individual honor and team honors, 6 championships, 2 Finals MVP, 6 regular season MVP, 19 All-Star selections, 2-time scoring champion and 1-time rebounding champion.

In the 1990-1991 season, Johnson was forced to retire because of the news that he had AIDS, and although he made a brief comeback, he was no longer as brave as he used to be, and the leader of the Lakers was carried by James Worthy.

Back last season, Worthy averaged 21.2 points and 6 rebounds per game to prove that he qualified to be the leader of the Lakers, and in the 1990-1991 season, Johnson retired, and Worthy averaged 24 points per game, and he led the Lakers all the way to the Finals, and their opponents were the Chicago Bulls led by Michael Jordan.

In the first game, Sam Perkins made a three-pointer at the last minute of the game, setting the score at 93-91, and the Lakers won in a thrilling way, Sam Parsons was the No. 4 rookie in 1984, and was an alumnus of Jordan in college, this shot made Jordan not talk to Parsons for a whole week, but then, Jordan launched a crazy attack, and the Lakers lost four games in a row, and finally gave up the championship to Jordan, and this year was the first year that Jordan created the first Bulls usual.

At this time, James Worthy is 31 years old, with constant knee injuries, and the leadership temperament of Worthy in the later period is still there, but the court ability is no longer what it used to be, and in the following seasons, the Lakers players went back and forth several times, and the team reached the playoffs but it was also the role of accompanying the prince to study.

After Johnson's retirement, the last six-round pick in NBA history, Dale Twright, was promoted to the starter, and had a good performance, averaging 15 points, 7 assists and 1.7 steals per game at his peak, center Sam Perkins can fight for rebounds on the inside, but also can burst out on the outside, he averaged 15 points and 7 rebounds per game in the Lakers' three seasons, and Vlad Divac, the No. 23 rookie in the first round of 1.989, began to score double-doubles after crossing the threshold of the rookie wall. He averaged 13 points and 9 rebounds per game, the all-time iron man AC Green was also able to average more than 10 points per game, in 1993 the Lakers took a small man in the second round, his name was Nick Van Exel, he averaged 17 points per game in his rookie season, and with James Worthy retiring due to a knee injury in 1994, the Lakers brought in dunk king Cedric Ceballos from the Suns to make up for the loss after Worthy's departure, but all of this could not make the Lakers stand at the top of the league, Until 1996, the Lakers signed Shaquille O'Neal, who had an inseparable quarrel with the club Magic, for a sky-high price of $120 million in 6 years, and at the same time, the Lakers traded Divac, who averaged 18 points and 11 rebounds per game, to the Hornets for an inconspicuous No. 13 pick at the time, and they used this sign to select a high school player from Philadelphia, he was called Kobe Bryant, and the "OK" combination of O'Neal and Kobe Bryant made a name for itself. has become the backbone of the Lakers' revival!

Pay attention to the next chapter, "The Rising Lakers Dynasty!" 》