History of the Los Angeles Lakers

The Los Angeles Lakers, is a National Basketball Association (NBA) team from Los Angeles, California. One of the greatest team in NBA history, the Lakers, have won 15 Championships, 29 Conference titles and 31 division tiles, since their formation in 1946.

The National Basketball League was a professional basketball league, started in the United States in 1936. The team was introduced as the Detroit Gems basketball team in the National Basketball League (NBL), in 1946. Owned by C. King Boring, an entrepreneur from Michigan, the team featured in only one season of NBL, before Boring sold it to Ben Berger and Morris Chalfen for a sum of $15,000, in 1947.

The new owners shifted the team base to Minneapolis, and named it 'Lakers', with a reference to Minnesota, which was also known as the 'Land of 10,000 Lakes'. Max Winter was made the Lakers' new General Manager. The team went on to win the NBL Championship in their very first season. In the following year, they shifted to the Basketball Association of America, (BAA), a professional league founded in the United States in 1946. The Lakers won the championship in their first season in this new league.

The NBA Golden Run
In 1949, NBL and BAA merged to form the National Basketball Association (NBA). Winning the NBA Championship that year, Lakers made it their third overall championship win. The winning streak finally came to an end, in 1951, after losing to Rochester Royals. But, they recovered in the next season, and won three successive titles in 1952, 1953 and 1954 to become only the first team to win five NBA championships in six years, and thus became the first dynasty in the NBA.

During this golden run, the Lakers were largely dependent on George Mikan. After Mikan's retirement in 1954, Lakers saw a sharp decline in attendance for their games. The team was sold to a group of businessmen headed by Bob Short. After citing that Major league Baseball team, Brooklyn Dodgers, made huge financial gains when they moved to Los Angeles, Bob Short decided to move Lakers franchisee to to Los Angeles, California. Thus, they became NBA's first West Coast team. Though, the name Lakers didn't change, the team was now known as the Los Angeles Lakers.

You Win Some, You Lose Some
In 1960s, the duo of Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, rule the court for the LA Lakers, finishing among the top ten NBA scorers in the next four seasons. In 1965, Short sold the franchisee to Jack Kent Cooke, a Canadian-American entrepreneur, for a sum of $5 million. Between 9th November, 1971 and 9th January, 1972, LA Lakers won 33 games in a row, making a new record in NBA circuit. The record still stands as the longest winning streak in any professional sport in American history. In 1972, the Lakers defeated the New York Knicks to end an 18 year championship drought. It was their first title after the team moved to Los Angeles.

In December 1977, Laker's player, Kermit Washington landed a fatal blow on Rudy Tomjanovich, almost ending his career, and earned a 60 match suspension. This was one of the dark chapters of the history of the Los Angeles Lakers franchisee. Before the 1979-80 season began, Cooke sold the team to a real estate developer, Dr. Jerry Buss. In the same year, the Lakers defeated the Philadelphia 76ers to win the NBA Championship. The 1984-85 season marked the 'Showtime Era' for the Lakers. During this phase, they defeated the Boston Celtic's to win the NBA Championship. The same year they won their fourth consecutive Pacific Division title.

The year 1990, marked the emergence of the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan. The Bulls defeated the Lakers to win the first of their six titles in the 90s. During the 1996 season, Lakers signed Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson. The trio proved to be a winning combination, and the team cruised to the finals. However, in the finals, they lost to Utah Jazz. History repeated itself in the 1997 season, wherein the Lakers made it to the finals but lost out to Utah Jazz for a second successive year.

In the 1999-2000 season, they acquired the new home floor at the Staples Center, and went on to win the NBA Championship after a break of 10 years. This was followed by successive title wins in 2001 and 2002. After a great start, Lakers went on to win the Pacific Division title in 2003-04. Post the 2004 season, the differences between O'Neil and Bryant had reached its helm, and O'Neil was traded to the Miami Heat. In the 2008 season, Lakers managed to reach the NBA finals but were defeated by the Boston Celtics.

Lately, injury woes and differences within the team has been hampering the team spirit and affecting their performance on the court. The need of the hour for them is to get things together and relive the golden era which the LA Lakers saw with George Mikan and Elgin Baylor.