Each day this week, we are choosing the best Lakers players to wear every jersey number in franchise history. The series began with Nos. 00 through 9 and continued with Nos. 10 through 21 and, in the most star-laden installment, Nos. 22 through 33.
Last month, Sam Amick and Josh Robbins of The Athletic selected the best NBA players to wear each number in league history.
34 — Shaquille O’Neal
“There’s certain players that belong in certain cities,” Jerry West told me. It was 2016, Shaquille O’Neal was about to enter the Hall of Fame, and we were reflecting on the career of one of the most dominant big men in league history. In his quest to bring O’Neal to the Lakers two decades earlier, West had worked himself to the point that he required hospitalization. Once he was here, O’Neal spent eight seasons with the Lakers, a tenure that brought three championships and a Most Valuable Player trophy in 2000.
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It’s difficult to explain, now 20 years since his MVP season, just how forceful O’Neal was. Western Conference opponents stacked their rosters with veteran big men only to have Shaq repeatedly pulverize them at the rim. He made it hard to be a fan of another team. You knew, in the pit of your stomach, that no matter how good your team was, they wouldn’t have an answer for him. Ask Portland, Ask Sacramento. Kobe Bryant was equally frustrating, but he at least beat you in the same way other high-flying guards around the league did. O’Neal was a machine. It’s a wonder he didn’t score 100 points a game.
In the end, the longstanding rift with Bryant limited Shaq’s tenure in Los Angeles. With the Lakers, he won three Finals MVPs and was an All-NBA first-teamer six times. He led the league in scoring in 2000 and in field-goal percentage in six of his eight years as a Laker. When O’Neal’s statue was unveiled in front of Staples Center in 2017, Bryant called him “the most dominant player I’ve ever seen.”
- Runner-up: Clyde Lovelette
- Lakers to wear this number: 11
- Also wore it: Stan Love, Pétur Guðmundsson, George Lynch
35 — Rudy LaRusso
A three-time All-Star in eight seasons with the Lakers, LaRusso was a mainstay in the earliest years of professional basketball in L.A. Drafted in 1959 out of Dartmouth, LaRusso made the move with the franchise when it pulled up stakes in Minneapolis and headed west.
A hard-nosed power forward who served as the enforcer for teams led by Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, LaRusso dominated the boards. He averaged 14.1 points and 9.6 rebounds per game with the Lakers. He scored a career-high 50 points in a game in 1962 against the St. Louis Hawks.
- Runner-up: Mark Madsen
- Lakers to wear this number: 12
- Also wore it: Rick Roberson, Don Ford, Billy Ray Bates, Tony Brown, Doug Christie, Reggie Bullock
37 — Metta World Peace
Due to his penchant for changing jersey numbers, Metta World Peace is one of two players in Lakers history to appear on this list as the best to wear two separate numbers. The other, of course, is Kobe Bryant. But World Peace nearly one-upped Bryant and had a third number to claim as his own, too. During his final season with the Lakers in 2017, World Peace said he tried to change to No. 60 for the year — 60 being the number of points Bryant scored in his final game the previous spring. However, he requested the change after the league’s deadline had passed.
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“I wanted to surprise (Kobe),” World Peace said. “I was so honored to be there. But whatever.”
Has any player in history had more fun with numbers than World Peace? He claimed he wore No. 37 — first in his inaugural season with the Lakers in 2009-10, and again in his second stint from 2015 to 2017 — in honor of the number of weeks Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was No. 1 on the charts.
- Runner-up: Kostas Antetokounmpo
- Lakers to wear this number: 2
39 — Dwight Howard
Dwight Howard is just the sixth player in league history to wear 39, and the number seemed to symbolize his return to the Lakers this season. It’s as though it was the last jersey in the box, the number no one else would have thought to claim.
Six years after he had bolted L.A. after one drama-filled campaign alongside Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash, Howard returned to the Lakers in the summer of 2019 on the fringes of the NBA. His contract was non-guaranteed, and his ability to contribute also was uncertain. Howard had missed the most of the previous season and had been traded three times and waived twice in the span of 26 months. The NBA had seemingly left him behind. Then fate intervened.
DeMarcus Cousins tore his ACL in a summertime pickup game, and the Lakers were in need of another center. Howard auditioned and got the job, and one of the most awkward reunions in league history commenced. Only … it wasn’t awkward. Refusing to make his return about the past, he embraced a role doing the dirty work. In the process, he turned himself back into an imposing defensive force. In 62 appearances, Howard averaged 7.5 points and 7.4 rebounds in just shy of 20 minutes per game.
- Lakers to wear this number: 1
Dwight Howard has been surprisingly productive off the Lakers’ bench. (Kirby Lee / USA Today Sports)40 — Mike McGee
Drafted 19th overall in the 1981 NBA Draft (one pick ahead of Larry Nance), McGee was an offensive threat off the Lakers’ bench for five seasons. He won titles with the Lakers in 1982 and 1985. He was a highly efficient scorer for a guard, shooting 51.9 percent in his five seasons. In the 1985 postseason, which culminated with the Lakers toppling the hated Boston Celtics for the first time, McGee averaged 10.2 points in just 15.4 minutes per game.
- Runner-up: Travis Knight
- Lakers to wear this number: 11
- Also wore it: Lucius Allen, Jim Brewer, Antonio Harvey, Ivica Zubac
41 — Elden Campbell
What player embodies the Lakers in the 90s better than Elden Campbell? The big man spent nine seasons with the Lakers from 1990 to 1999, scored more points in the decade (6,408) than any other Laker and still ranks third in franchise history in blocks. A regular starter from 1993 to 1997, Campbell was a fixture on the Lakers teams that bridged championship eras. In those four years, he averaged 13.4 points and 7.1 rebounds per game.
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During the 1998-99 season, Campbell was traded to Charlotte along with Eddie Jones for three-time All-Star small forward Glen Rice. Campbell and Rice essentially swapped jerseys, with both continuing to wear 41 with their new teams. While Rice averaged 15.9 points and helped the Lakers win the 2000 NBA title in his one full season in L.A., his short stint (just 107 regular games) paved the way for Campbell to earn this distinguished honor.
- Runner-up: Glen Rice
- Lakers to wear this number: 5
- Also wore it: C.J. Kupec, Mitch Kupchak, Swen Nater
42 — James Worthy
The Lakers were certainly savvy enough to trade for the picks that became Magic Johnson in 1979 and James Worthy in 1982, but just as much as you create your own luck in life, your luck creates you.
Let’s put this in modern terms: Imagine if the 2018 Warriors had the first pick and added Luka Doncic or DeAndre Ayton to their super team. By virtue of a trade involving Don Ford in 1980, the Lakers owned Cleveland’s first-round pick in 1982. The Lakers were coming off their second championship in three years, while the Cavaliers had the league’s worst record and won a coin flip for the top overall choice. What a twist of the knife for the rest of the league. A 57-win team the year before, the Lakers swooped in and added the All-American Worthy to a lineup that already boasted an embarrassment of riches in Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jamaal Wilkes.
Worthy did not disappoint, becoming an essential piece of three more title teams before the end of the Showtime era. He has career averages of 17.6 points and 5.1 rebounds, but he was always better in the playoffs than in the regular season. Worthy led the Lakers in scoring en route to championships in both 1987 and 1988, becoming the Finals MVP in ’88 after tallying a triple-double in the decisive Game 7. He averaged 21.5 points in the 1985 playoffs, helping the Lakers finally topple Boston in the championship round and avenging the late turnover he committed in the Finals a year earlier that allowed Boston to rally for a Game 2 victory and ultimately win the series. A 52.1 percent shooter for his career, Worthy appeared in seven All-Star games and made two All-NBA teams.
- Runner-up: Walt Hazzard
- Lakers to wear this number: 5
- Also wore it: Connie Hawkins, Lucius Allen
43 — Mychal Thompson
With Kareem Abdul-Jabbar nearing the end of his career in the late 80s, the Lakers needed to reinforce their depth behind the most prolific scorer in league history. They turned to Mychal Thompson, a former No. 1 overall pick who had been a 20-point scorer earlier in the decade in Portland.
The Lakers acquired the Bahamas native in a trade with San Antonio during the 1987 season, bolstering the frontline before a playoff run that yielded the first of back-to-back championships. A noted defender, Thompson brought added toughness that the Lakers needed to get through first the Boston Celtics and, a year later, the “Bad Boys” of Detroit.
- Runner-up: Brian Cook
- Lakers to wear this number: 7
- Also wore it: Earl Tatum, Chuck Nevitt, Corie Blount
44 — Jerry West
A legendary obsessive, Jerry West spent 40 years with the Lakers. He starred next to Elgin Baylor and Wilt Chamberlain, coached Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and united Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. His 14 years as a player were some of the most prolific in league history. His 46.3 points per game in a 1965 playoff series against Baltimore remains an NBA record, and the annals of league history are littered with his accomplishments.
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So iconic was West in the 1960s that branding consultant Alan Siegel modeled the new NBA logo in 1969 after West dribbling the ball with his left hand. A year later, he hit one of the most famous shots in league history when he buried a 60-foot heave in Game 3 of the Finals against the New York Knicks. The Lakers were only down two at the time, but since this was before the advent of the 3-point line, the buzzer-beater merely forced overtime, where the Lakers lost.
Throughout West’s career, the postseason was largely a house of horrors. He led the Lakers to the Finals nine times but lost his first seven appearances — even winning Finals MVP in a losing effort in 1969 — before finally breaking through in 1971-72. West also was famous for knowing when to quit, both as a player and, abruptly in 2000, as an executive. And entering the 1974 season, it was time for West to quit. He missed 51 games with a groin injury the season before and spent the whole summer running sprints up the steep approach to the 17th green at Bel Air Country Club to prepare for the season. But as he sat at his locker before the team’s exhibition opener on Sept. 27, West realized he wasn’t experiencing his typical pregame anxiety. His hands were uncharacteristically calm.
“I didn’t feel that electrical charge,” he said in 2014.
That preseason game would be his last appearance with the Lakers and, therefore, the last time No. 44 was worn by a Laker. When West retired, he did so as the third-leading scorer in league history. More than 45 years after his last game, West still ranks in the top three in franchise history in games, minutes, points, assists, free throws and minutes per game.
- Runner-up: Chuck Share
- Lakers to wear this number: 2
45 — A.C. Green
Throughout his career, and maybe even still, Green was perhaps most famous as the NBA player who practiced abstinence while living and playing basketball in the land of excess. The Lakers of the 1980s were a constant party, and Green, drafted 23rd overall out of Oregon State in 1985, didn’t exactly fit the mold. “I am in this environment,” Green said later in his career, “but the environment doesn’t dictate the norms.” But on the court, Green more than had a place, earning the respect of teammates with his rebounding prowess and durability and winning championships in 1987 and ’88 and, in his return to the Lakers, in 2000.
He never missed a game from 1987 through 2000, a streak of 1,192 games. In a modern age where load management is common practice and there is little reward for paying through injuries — famously, he played one day after having an emergency root canal — Green’s mark may prove to be the most untouchable record in basketball. An All-Star in 1990, Green averaged 11.3 points and 7.9 rebounds in his first eight seasons with the Lakers, and he still ranks second in franchise history in offensive rebounds and in the top 10 in total rebounds, steals and games played.
- Runner-up: Sean Rooks
- Lakers to wear this number: 3
- Also wore it: Derrick Caracter
49 — Mel McCants
Of the thousands of players who have appeared in an NBA game, only two have every donned the No. 49. Mel McCants is one.
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Who is Mel McCants? Well, if you were paying attention to the Lakers in the 1989-90 season — close attention — you might recall a 6-foot-8 undrafted rookie from Purdue who made the team in training camp and appeared in 13 regular-season games. He made a couple of playoff appearances, too. That was Mel McCants.
While you might have forgotten him, he hasn’t forgotten his year in L.A. In an interview with Rivals earlier this year, McCants said: “You watch (Magic) on TV all those years, then, wow, you are his teammate. I was in awe the first day I saw him. The Lakers greats. ‘Wow, I am part of it now.’ It was a dream.”
But then McCants sprained both ankles, and, as he tells it, waited too long to sign his new contract with the Lakers. He got lost in the shuffle of a Lakers coaching change as Mike Dunleavy replaced Pat Riley. McCants went on to play in the CBA and later Belgium, but never again in the NBA.
Next: The best Lakers to wear Nos. 50 through 99.
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