Before you can understand where the Lakers are going, it helps to know where they’ve been. Few franchises in professional sports carry the weight of history the Lakers do — 17 NBA championships, a run of Hall of Fame superstars spanning eight decades, and a brand that’s as much a part of Los Angeles as the Hollywood sign.
From Minneapolis to L.A.
The Lakers didn’t start in Los Angeles at all. The franchise was founded in 1947 in Minneapolis, Minnesota — hence the name, a nod to the state’s thousands of lakes. Led by dominant center George Mikan, the early Lakers won five championships in the league’s first decade, establishing the franchise as a winner before it ever set foot in California. The team relocated to Los Angeles in 1960, keeping the name despite the obvious geographic mismatch.
The West and Wilt Era
In Los Angeles, the Lakers built a new identity around Jerry West, whose silhouette famously became the NBA’s official logo, and later added Wilt Chamberlain, one of the most dominant scorers the game has ever seen. Despite loaded rosters, the Lakers spent much of the 1960s losing painful Finals matchups to the Boston Celtics before finally breaking through with a championship in 1972.
Showtime
The 1980s brought the Lakers’ most iconic era: Showtime, built around the dazzling point guard play of Magic Johnson and the scoring of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the franchise’s all-time leading scorer. Under coach Pat Riley, the Lakers won five titles in the decade, playing a fast-paced, highlight-reel style that redefined what NBA offense could look like.
Shaq, Kobe, and Three Straight
After a quieter 1990s, the Lakers roared back with a devastating pairing of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, winning three consecutive championships from 2000 to 2002. The Shaq-Kobe partnership was combustible and occasionally dysfunctional off the court, but on it, it produced one of the most dominant stretches in NBA history.
Kobe’s Final Titles and the LeBron Years
Bryant added two more championships in 2009 and 2010, cementing his place among the greatest players ever and giving the Lakers five titles in his career alone. After a rebuilding stretch following Bryant’s retirement, the Lakers landed LeBron James in 2018, and paired with Anthony Davis, won the franchise’s 17th championship in the 2020 NBA bubble — a title played under unprecedented pandemic conditions and dedicated to Bryant, who had passed away earlier that year.
A New Ownership, A New Core
The Lakers enter the 2026-27 season under new majority ownership, led by Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, with longtime governor Jeanie Buss remaining part of the ownership group. On the court, the James era has ended, and the franchise has rebuilt around Luka Doncic, acquired in a blockbuster 2025 trade. It’s a new chapter for a franchise that has reinvented itself around a new superstar more times than almost any team in sports history — and, if history is any indication, that’s usually when the Lakers are at their most dangerous.