Elgin Baylor Era

Lore & Background

The Lakers are one of the NBA's most famous and successful franchises. As of August 2024, the Lakers are second in the NBA's all-time records for wins (3,550) and winning percentage (.591), and hold the all-time record for most NBA Finals appearances (32). They are second in NBA championship wins with 17, just behind the Boston Celtics with 18 NBA titles, and with nine more Finals appearances than the Celtics, their biggest rival. Their team has had many NBA legends, including George Mikan, Jim Pollard, Clyde Lovellette, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Gail Goodrich, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jamaal Wilkes, James Worthy, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, LeBron James, and Anthony Davis.

Reader's Guide

The franchise was founded in 1946 as the Detroit Gems, led by founder/owner C. King Boring and his business partner Maurice Winston, and played in the National Basketball League (NBL) during the 1946–47 season where it finished last in the league with only 4 wins in 44 games. Though the team was scheduled to continue in the NBL the following season, its ownership, faced with high losses due to low attendance and lack of homecourt, decided on selling the team to Ben Berger and Morris Chalfen of Minnesota for $15,000 in June 1947.

Minneapolis sportswriter Sid Hartman played a key behind-the-scenes role in helping put together the deal and later the team, including helping them hire John Kundla from College of St. Thomas, to be their first head coach, by meeting with him and selling him on the team. Berger and Chalfen relocated the team to Minneapolis, with home games being played at both the Minneapolis Auditorium and the Minneapolis Armory. The franchise was re-christened the 'Lakers' in reference to Minnesota's nickname, 'The Land of 10,000 Lakes'.

Berger and Chalfen brought in Max Winter, later to become a founder and owner of the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings, to be the Lakers' new general manager. Winter also took an ownership stake in the team, which he would maintain until he left the Lakers in 1955. The acquisition of the franchise left the team with no players of value and the former ownership had sold away the few players it drafted in the 1947 NBL draft before the sale.

As the Gems had recorded by far the worst record in the NBL, the Lakers had the first pick in the 1947 Professional Basketball League of America dispersal draft, which they used to select George Mikan, later to become one of the greatest centers of his time. With Mikan, new coach Kundla and an infusion of former University of Minnesota players to replace those lost prior to the relocation, the Lakers won the NBL championship in their first season.

A week prior to the NBL finals, the Lakers won the annual World Professional Basketball Tournament, where Mikan was named MVP after scoring a tournament-record 40 points against the New York Renaissance in the title-clinching game. The following season, the Lakers switched to the 12-team Basketball Association of America (BAA) and proceeded to win the championship in that season.