Gail Goodrich

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

A native of the Los Angeles area, Goodrich was the captain of the John H. Francis Polytechnic High School basketball team that dominated and won the 1961 Los Angeles City high school basketball championship. Goodrich scored 29 points in the championship game despite breaking his ankle in the third quarter. Goodrich has said that he had originally wanted to attend the University of Southern California (USC), where his father had once been a star player. But coach John Wooden of UCLA ultimately showed much more interest in Goodrich than did USC. Like many Division I colleges, USC was wary of Goodrich's short stature. He was only 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) his junior year in high school and even at his ultimate height of 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m), he was short by college basketball standards. Goodrich attended UCLA, where he finished as the school's all-time leading scorer and played on the school's first two national championship teams in 1964 and 1965. He was a two-time All-American and the Helms Foundation's 'Co-Player of the Year' (along with Princeton's Bill Bradley) in 1965. In the 1965 NCAA championship game, he scored a record 42 points as UCLA beat favored Michigan. This record stood until 1973 when UCLA's Bill Walton scored 44 in the finals vs. Memphis State, and through 2020 it is still the second-highest total by a player in the championship game. While at UCLA, Goodrich was also a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. A tenacious and fiery competitor, Goodrich used intelligent ball-handling skills and excellent court vision to lead two of the most successful teams in college basketball history. The left-handed junior guard was the team's main scorer. He finished with an average of 21.5 points per game and guided the 1963–64 UCLA Bruins to a 30–0 record. For the first time, a UCLA team won all 30 of its games en route to the school's first NCAA title. Goodrich and Keith Erickson were the only returning starters from the team that won UCLA's first national title in 1964. As a senior, the Bruins repeated as NCAA champions as Goodrich scored 24.6 points per game. At UCLA, Goodrich helped compile a 78–11 three-year record. In both of those championship seasons, Goodrich was named to the NCAA Final Four All-Tournament team. Goodrich at the time finished as UCLA's all-time leading scorer (1,690 points) which is now broken by Don MacLean (2,608 points).

In Their Own Story

The 1975–76 season marked a tactical shift for Goodrich as he turned 31. Deciding to lose about 10 pounds to reach his college playing weight of 172 pounds for better quickness, he switched roles from shooting guard to the "playmaking" position, swapping spots with Lucius Allen. This change revitalized a slumping Lakers team that had recently acquired Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The transformation was so effective that a Long Beach newspaper noted it "did wonders." Before this season, on March 28, 1975, Goodrich achieved another personal milestone by scoring 53 points against the Kansas City-Omaha Kings, his first game topping 50 points. However, friction arose in the fall of 1975 when he held out for four games while playing out his option to become a free agent. He eventually signed with the New Orleans Jazz on August 6, 1976, for a three-year contract reportedly worth $1.4 million. His time there was marred by an Achilles injury requiring surgery in early 1977 and a lawsuit against the Lakers alleging he was shorted over $150,000 of his salary due to fines.

Reader's Guide

Goodrich was a territorial pick by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1965 NBA draft. As a rookie in 1965–66, he averaged about 15 minutes per game as a reserve guard behind starters Jerry West and former UCLA teammate Walt Hazzard. Goodrich posted averages of 7.8 points per game (ppg), 2.0 rebounds per game (rpg) and 1.6 assists per game (apg). On December 23, 1965, he scored a personal single-game best of 25 points against the San Francisco Warriors. The Lakers advanced to the NBA finals, where they lost in seven games to the Boston Celtics. In 1966–67, his playing time increased to over 23 minutes per game as he divided time with Hazzard at guard opposite West. Goodrich posted averages of 12.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg and 2.7 apg. In the first game of the season he scored a then-career-high 30 points in a game against the Baltimore Bullets, a feat which he duplicated six weeks later against the Chicago Bulls. In 1967–68, his third season, Goodrich's playing time increased again, to 26 minutes per game, although it wasn't without frustration as he returned to a reserve role backing up guard Archie Clark opposite West. Goodrich averaged 13.8 ppg, 2.5 rpg and 2.6 apg. The Lakers returned to the NBA Finals, but they again fell to the Celtics in six games. In 1968, the Lakers lost Goodrich to the Phoenix Suns in the expansion draft, and he quickly became the star of the new franchise and a favorite among Suns fans. A full-time starter for the first time in his NBA career in the 1968–69 season, Goodrich showed what was to come as he scored at least 22 points in each of the Suns' first 11 games. In a span of nearly three weeks (February 21-March 9, 1969), he had three 40-point games, which saw him peak with 47 against the San Diego Rockets on March 9. For the season, Goodrich scored 23.8 points per game — sixth in the league and tops on his team. He surprised critics who had labeled him a gunner by ranking seventh in assists with 6.4 per game along with 5.4 rpg. He was selected to play in the 1969 NBA All-Star Game. In the following season, Goodrich averaged 20 points and 7.5 assists per game. After the season, on May 20, 1970, he was traded back to the Lakers in exchange for Mel Counts. For the 1970–71 season, now as a Lakers starter alongside Jerry West, Goodrich averaged 17.5 ppg as the Lakers advanced to the Western Conference Finals. The 1971–72 Lakers season was one that w

Did You Know?

• Goodrich scored a then-record 42 points in the 1965 NCAA championship game, a record that stood until 1973.
• He was the leading scorer on the 1971–72 Lakers team that won a still-record 33 consecutive games and the franchise's first NBA championship since moving to Los Angeles.
• Goodrich was nicknamed 'Stumpy' by teammate Elgin Baylor because of his height and short legs.
• He is the leader in highest average minutes per game played in Suns franchise history with 39.9.