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.
During the Lakers’ 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.
While the Lakers won NBA championships in 1980, 1982 and 1985, by the 1986-87 season, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was finally starting to show his age. In addition, they had always lacked a quality backup for him, and the power forward position had been a relative weakness for them throughout the decade.
They addressed all those issues with one move when, midway through the 1986-87 campaign, they sent Frank Brickowski, Pétur Guðmundsson and two future draft picks to the San Antonio Spurs for big man Mychal Thompson. Thompson was the No. 1 pick in the 1978 draft, and while he had never been an All-Star, he had put up strong scoring and rebounding numbers from year to year.
The 6-foot-10 Bahamian native quickly became a fixture for the Lakers, and having played with Kevin McHale in college, he knew how to contain the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics power forward. Los Angeles zoomed to a 65-17 record and defeated the Celtics in six games in the NBA Finals in 1987, and it then pushed past the Detroit Pistons in the 1988 championship series to become the first team in nearly 20 years to repeat as NBA champions.
Thompson stayed with the Lakers until he retired from the NBA in 1991, and he averaged 8.9 points and 5.4 rebounds in 22.8 minutes a game during his time with the Purple and Gold. Overall, he had career league averages of 13.7 points and 7.4 rebounds a game.
In modern times, he is known as the Lakers’ color commentator for radio broadcasts, and he has also served as a co-host on multiple radio talk shows in the L.A. market.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Lakers jersey history No. 43 — Mychal Thompson
Reporting by Robert Marvi, LeBron Wire / LeBron Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Robert Marvi, LeBron Wire | USA TODAY Network
