The Lakers have always had great players and teams. Mikan, teammate Jim Pollard, Baylor, Jerry West (his likeness is the NBA logo), Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant span seven decades of NBA basketball. The Boston Celtics have won the most pro basketball titles, 16. The Lakers have won 14, but it’s the storied franchise that started here that has won world championships in each decade except one since the 1940’s. Even the Celtics can’t match that success. (Note: the NBA recognizes the Lakers 1948-49 championship in the Basketball Association of America as an NBA title even though the NBA began in 1949-50. The Lakers won the NBA championship in 1949-50 and three more after that in Minneapolis).
The decade without a title was the 1960’s when six times the Lakers lost to the Celtics in the NBA finals. In one of sports’ greatest rivalries, the magnificent twosome of West and Baylor created a soap opera in which no matter the finals series, regardless of their lead in the series, and despite home court advantage, the Celtics would somehow find a hero, or get a lucky bounce of the ball on the rim, or find a lucky leprechaun to help them win again.
Those of us following our transplanted heroes watched with both admiration and envy. We were grateful to see many of the playoff games. Some of the series finals were on national TV. Earlier in the playoffs, Laker owner Bob Short, the Minneapolis businessman who had moved the team to Los Angeles in 1960, arranged for games to be televised here.
Short took the Lakers to Los Angeles because the franchise was losing money and often had to scramble for a playing site. The auditorium sometimes had other events, forcing the Lakers to play at the Minneapolis Armory or St. Paul Auditorium.
The Lakers were pretty much nothing starting out at the box office in Los Angeles, drawing crowds of around 4,000. Although that raised my curiosity as a kid as to why the Lakers ever left Minneapolis, in time the franchise became among the most popular in all of sports. The franchise that came to Minneapolis costing $15,000 now is worth $568 million, according to a forbes.com article in January.
In big market Los Angeles, the Lakers have undeniably prospered and acquired high price talent they never could have afforded in Minneapolis. The Lakers legacy in L.A. is far greater than our city of lakes could have provided.
Still, there aren’t any lakes in southern California and forever more some of us will prefer Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles Lakers. Happy 60th!