Curious to know all the possible LA Lakers facts out there? If you are a LA Lakers fan, you’re going to love this piece. We divided all the facts into five different eras: from 2011 to the present, from 2001 to 2010, from 1991 to 2000, and from 1980 to 1990.
You might have heard or read about some of these facts before, but my hope is that you’ll be reading most of them for the first time. You know, it’s more entertaining this way. So do I hear someone saying The Coolest LA Lakers Facts Ever, or is it just me? Let’s see the list, shall we?
LA Lakers facts from 2011 until now, Markieff Morris and Anthony Davis had historic postseasons.
The 2020 Lakers were particularly special because they won the NBA Championship with some of the most historic performances their role players and star players have ever had. Markieff Morris (a former member of the team) was a sniper rifle from three.
He shot 42% from beyond the arc. The percentage is the third-highest in franchise history for a playoff run, trailing only Trevor Ariza and Mychal Thompson. In the meantime, Anthony David scored the most impressive postseason in the entire Lakers history.
Davis posted a.284 win share for every 48 minutes in those playoffs. Among some of the players with 500 minutes in a single playoff run, Davis’s WS/48 ranks 7th all-time and first in the franchise’s history.
The Lakers missed the playoffs way more in their mid-2010 drought than they did in franchise history prior
The Los Angeles Lakers missed the playoffs six years in a row before they managed to make it through the playoffs and win it all in the 2019–20 season. Before that well-known six-year drought, the franchise had only missed the playoffs five times since 1948.
Steve Nash is the Lakers’ all-time leader in 3-point percentage (with a minimum of 100 attempts).
Steve Nash didn’t pan out for the Los Angeles Lakers, but here’s one thing that we definitely know: he shot that basketball incredibly well from beyond the arc. The NBA Hall of Famer attempted 154 threes, of which he made 42.2%. That’s the best three-point percentage in franchise history with a minimum of 100 attempts.
From 2001 until 2010, Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals was the second-scoring Game 7 of the 3-point era.
The Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics battled in Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals, where the Lakers walked away with an 83-79 victory. It was probably one of the most nerve-wracking games to ever watch in the franchise’s history.
The Lakers were coming up against one of their biggest rivals, looking for a repeat on their home court in a do-or-die game. The game was messy, but the Lakers got the job done with only 83 points.
Derek Fisher didn’t dunk a basketball after 30 years.
Even if he was logging over 30,000 minutes in the NBA, Derek Fisher only dunked the basketball 13 times and never did it again. Fisher’s last-ever dunk came in the 2003-04 season, which was the last year of his first stint with the Lakers. Fisher also logged one playoff dunk in his entire career, coming in the second year of his career in the 1998 playoffs.
Shaquille O’Neal never recorded a triple-double as a Laker.
Some of their fans use triple-doubles as a measuring stick for a player’s talent. The same fans might say that Shaquille O’Neal is overrated. Even if he is one of the most dominant big men in the league, Shaq never recorded a triple-double with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Big Diesel actually recorded two triple-doubles in his entire career, one with the Orlando Magic and the other with the Miami Heat. There must be something about Florida, right?
The 1999-2000 Lakers were the very first team in L.A.’s history to win the title without three Hall of Famers.
I know it sounds a bit crazy to believe, but apparently, every single Los Angeles Lakers team that ever won a championship before Kobe and Shaq started their three-peat had no less than three Hall of Famers on the roster. As so much time has passed since the three-peat, I think it is safe to say there won’t be another Hall of Famer on that team ever again.
One team in Lakers history managed to win a title with fewer than three Hall of Famers. The 1948–49 Minneapolis Lakers won with only two Hall of Famers. The 2009-10 Lakers had two likely Hall of Famers, as the 2020 Lakers had more: three, maybe four, and those are LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Dwight Howard, and Rajon Rondo.
Cedric Ceballos received an MVP vote back in 1995.
This is exactly the fun bar trivia that you might have wanted. If the question is who is the weirdest Laker ever to get an NBA vote, you’ve got your answer: it’s Cedric Ceballos. The one-time all-star got one fifth-place vote in his lone all-star season back in 1995, which officially put his name in the MVP conversation with some of the greatest of all time.
Magic Johnson’s break from the NBA lasted twice as long as his entire career as an executive.
Magic Johnson had to retire prematurely after declaring that he had become infected with HIV. After his last game in 1991, Johnson returned for 32 games in the 1995–96 season for the Lakers. The gap between Game 5 of the 1991 NBA Finals and Johnson’s return on January 30, 1996, was 1,693 days.
Over 20 years later, he would soon be hired as the President of Basketball Operations for the Lakers on February 21, 2017. Johnson resigned via a public press conference on April 9, 2019, after only 777 days as an executive. The gap between playing NBA games was over twice as long as his career as an executive.
From 1980 to 1990: Mike McGee had the highest-scoring game for the Lakers during the 1984–1985 season.
The 1984–85 Los Angeles Lakers were a very special basketball team. Right in the heart of the Showtime era, these Lakers went 62-20 and won the NBA Championship in six games against the Boston Celtics. This was Worthy’s second season with the Lakers, and looking back at it, the team included five Hall of Famers (Worthy, Magic, Kareem, Jamaal Wilkes, and Bob McAdoo).
Besides all this talent, the player who had the best scoring game was Mike McGee. Backup forward Mike McMgee scored 41 points off the bench on April 12, 1985, in the battle against the Seattle Supersonics. He took 25 shots, out of which he made 18.
The 1986-97 Lakers were 29-4 at home.
You could say that the 1986–87 Lakers were probably the best team that ever existed in franchise history. These Lakers went 65-17 and also beat the Boston Celtics in six games for a combined 15-3 record in the 1987 NBA Playoffs. It was definitely the best year of Magic Johnson’s career, given that he won his first three MVPs and the Lakers were basically impossible to beat at The Forum, going 29-4 in the process.
Paul Westhead was one of two NBA Champions who decided to change head coaches in the middle of the season.
Only three teams in NBA history have ever won an NBA Championship and changed coaches midseason. Probably the best example is the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, who won the NBA Championship after firing David Blatt and promoting Ty Lue. In that season, Blatt coached 41 games.
Paul Westhead won the NBA Championship in 1980 after taking over for Jack McKinney, who got into a bike accident. Westhead coached 68 games in the 1979–80 season. Two years later, he got fired after only 11 games, which has been theorized as Magic Johnson’s move.
Pat Riley replaced Westhead and went on to win the 1982 NBA Championship. Two of the three teams that won a title with such a coaching change were Lakers teams, and they both involved Paul Westhead.
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