The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the greatest franchises in professional sports, having won 17 NBA championships. As you’d expect with all that success, a whole host of greats have been part of the team over the years, which makes picking a list of the five greatest Lakers of all time quite a difficult task. Former Laker Robert Horry tried his hand at it on Byron Scott’s Fast Break podcast, and he came up with an interesting list.
“I’m taking Magic [Johnson] out,” Horry said. “He’s just on a whole another level. The next pick is definitely Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar]. I think what Kareem did is incredible. We always talking about the greatest players of all time. We never mention him, which is a slap in his face big time because he’s the only one that changed rules, you know what I mean?
“He’s the only one that took the game to a whole another level,” Horry stated. “You think about signature shots, the sky hook, that’s never been duplicated. So, I think, Kareem’s number one, of course, the Logo, Jerry West, and then [Shaquille O’Neal] and Kobe [Bryant].
“And then, this is going to be the odd one down the stretch here,” Horry continued. “It’s Phil [Jackson]. I know he didn’t play… I think it’s Phil because [of] the way he was able to bring Shaq and Kobe together… ‘Cause you think about it. Before he got there, we had five All-Stars. We had the team of the future.
“And sometimes when coaches recognize we got too many chefs in the kitchen, get rid of two chefs, Nick [Van Exel] and Eddie [Jones],” Horry added. “And then just leave Kobe and Shaq, and say, ‘Okay, we can go and get a bunch of guys who just know how to play and win and want to be the great, bring the culture up a notch.’ So, I just think him, he gets on that list because I think without him, we don’t win three in a row.”
Phil Jackson is a bit of a surprising inclusion, but you can make a very strong case for him. Jackson coached the Lakers for 11 seasons and won five championships. He led the team to a three-peat from 2000 to 2002 and then to back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010.
As Horry, who was part of that Lakers team that three-peated, pointed out, Jackson wasn’t afraid of making big decisions, and he was also great at managing egos. Not everyone could have handled the difficult task of managing Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant as well as he did. Speaking of the two icons, they are certainly deserving of a spot in the top five.
Bryant won five titles, two Finals MVPs, one MVP, and two scoring titles in his 20 seasons with the Lakers. He is the franchise’s all-time leading scorer, and many do consider him to be their greatest player.
As for O’Neal, he won three titles, three Finals MVPs, one MVP, and one scoring title in eight seasons with the Lakers. He was at his absolute peak during his time with the franchise and dominated the NBA in a way that not many have.
Bryant and O’Neal ended up on the Lakers thanks, in part, to Jerry West. West laid the foundations for that epic run as the general manager, and he also helped build the “Showtime” Lakers of the 1980s. Prior to that, he played for the team for 14 seasons, winning a title, a Finals MVP, and a scoring title.
Lastly, we get to the man at the top of Horry’s list, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Abdul-Jabbar also played 14 seasons with the Lakers, winning five titles, a Finals MVP, and three MVPs in that time. Some consider him to be the greatest player of all time.
Abdul-Jabbar’s former co-star, Magic Johnson, is at a level even beyond all these icons for Horry. Johnson won five titles, three Finals MVPs, three MVPs, and four assists titles in 13 seasons, and Bryant believed he was the greatest Laker.
