Jeanie Buss: Top 5 most important Laker players

[Chris Cool]

 

[THE K-MAN]

dont blame him one bit

he has his finger prints on every championship except last years and the Minneapolis ones

I was expecting her to say his name during the interview

 

[Chris Cool]

And nikkas in here justifying lebron.

 

[Regular_P]

It was wild disrespectful to the point I didn't even think it was real. From beginning to end, nobody has been more important to the Lakers than Jerry West.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Five most important Lakers?

West, Magic, and Kobe are all lifetime Lakers who helped sustain the franchise's success and popularity in their runs. The order of those three really doesn't matter, though ageism would play a factor into how you rank those three; those are the Big 3 Lakers though...

The bottom two is where it gets tricky:

•Mikan was the first great Laker, The League's first superstar, and ran The League's first dynasty. The argument against Mikan would be that he didn't play in LA, but the counter to thar would be its the same organization anyway and they retired his jersey anyway...

•Baylor was the next Laker superstar and truly one of the first black superstars. My issue with Elgin is I'm not sure he was good enough to warrant inclusion. He's damn near a career #2 and of all the great players to wear a Lakers uniform, he aint Top 5 if we just saying whose "best". He was the bridge from Mikan's era to when Logo matured though, and sustained their popularity....

•the case against Wilt is easy to me, he only played in LA 5 years and the best versions of Wilt Chamberlain came before he was a Laker. On the flip, Baylor and West couldn't win the title until Wilt--->who had won a title without them--->showed up, so him being the chief reason they won a championship for the first time in 18 years matters...

•the argument against Kareem is that the Lakers weren't winning anything until Magic showed up, he was there 4 years before Magic and they weren't sniffing a Finals. He still played 14 years in LA though and set numerous records while in a Laker jersey...

•Shaq later became a journeyman but his best versions of himself were as a Laker. He didn't win until Kobe matured but his case is pretty credible to me...

•LeBron has only been in LA three years, that alone makes him the biggest question mark on here. The argument for Bron though would be resurrecting the franchise from years of losing...

•you have other Lakers like Goodrich or Worthy you can make an argument for but those guys really weren't good enough to warrant inclusion...

Shaq probably gets the 4th spot to me. 5 is a coin flip with Kareem and Mikan, can't really choose. Everyone else is assed out...

I mostly agree, but you can't penalize KAJ for not winning until Magic got there and yet ignore West having the same issue worse. KAJ won 3 MVPs, 5 titles, and a FMVP with the Lakers while playing 14 years in LA and setting every records in the book. He HAS to be on there.

Magic-West-Kobe-Kareem and the 5th is Mikan or Shaq depending on whether we're only counting L.A.

Unpopular statement: Kobe and Phil were more important to the 3 peat than Shaq.

Literally no one in the entire league believed that for a second.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Old man yelling in the yard status.

I guess when he was playing in the 60s and 70s he never heard anyone say anything offensive to his black teammates.

No off the cuff list on a radio show is that big a deal. It makes him sound self-absorbed.