Through the 2024-25 season, the Los Angeles Lakers have had a total of 506 players suit up for them, going back to their days in Minneapolis. Some were forgettable, some were serviceable, some were good and a select few were flat-out legendary.
As the Lakers approach their 80th season of existence (they were founded back in 1946 as the Detroit Gems in the National Basketball League), LeBron Wire is taking a look at each player who has worn their jersey, whether it has been a purple and gold one or the ones they donned back in the Midwest during their early years.
Here, we take a look at Orlando Woolridge, a forward who played two seasons with the Lakers.
He was the No. 6 pick in the 1981 NBA Draft after a relatively quiet four-year tenure at the University of Notre Dame. His one or two pro seasons were also relatively quiet, but by the 1983-84 campaign, he emerged as a legitimate scoring option.
That year, he averaged 19.3 points a game, and the following season, he put up 22.9 points a game as a member of Michael Jordan’s first supporting cast. But while the 6-foot-9 forward was an exciting and very athletic player who threw down show-stopping dunks, he didn’t exactly have a positive reputation.
He was regarded as someone who was more concerned with putting up big scoring games than helping his team win games. Even worse, he had a well-documented cocaine habit off the court.
The Lakers brought him in as a free agent in the summer of 1988 after winning their fifth NBA championship of the decade. With fan favorite Kurt Rambis departing and big man Mychal Thompson starting to age, they needed a little more depth in the frontcourt.
In two seasons with L.A., Woolridge registered 11.1 points in 21.4 minutes a game and shot 51.4% from the floor. The team reached the NBA Finals in 1989 after going undefeated through the first three rounds of the playoffs, only to be swept there by the Detroit Pistons after Byron Scott and Magic Johnson injured their hamstrings. The following year, they fell in the second round of the playoffs to the Phoenix Suns.
In the summer of 1990, the Lakers traded Woolridge to the Denver Nuggets for two conditional second-round draft picks. He played four more seasons in the NBA with four different teams before finishing his basketball career in Italy.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Lakers jersey history No. 0 — Orlando Woolridge
Reporting by Robert Marvi, LeBron Wire / LeBron Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
