Los Angeles Lakers

Few fans would recognize the original white, light blue, and yellow Lakers jersey that the team wore when formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1947, even though the players wore these colors for more than a decade. After the team relocated to Los Angeles in 1960, the Lakers continued with this color scheme for another seven years. In 1967, owner Jack Kent Cooke changed the Los Angeles Lakers jersey colors to the now familiar royal purple, and yellow gold to match the uniforms of the Los Angeles Kings hockey team which he also owned.    

The Los Angeles Lakers team currently wears four distinct jerseys—a royal purple one for away games, a yellow gold jersey for home games, a white one for Sunday and holiday games, and since the introduction of the NBA’s Noche Latina events in 2007, the Lakers have a second white jersey inscribed with the word Los Lakers. The Lakers are the only NBA team to not regularly wear white for away games.  

Over the past six decades the purple Los Angeles Lakers jersey has changed little. However, the gold home jerseys have changed a lot. From 1967 until 1978 the gold Lakers jersey numbers were white framed with purple trim. During most of the 1970s and into the early 1980s the word Lakers was slanted, but overtime the font used for the word Lakers has gradually been both straightened and slimmed down. In the mid 80s the Lakers jerseys were a different shade of purple than their shorts were. During their Showtime Era from 1979 until 1988 the team won five championships and wore purple numbers trimmed with white on the gold Lakers jerseys. In 1999, the Lakers jersey numbers changed again. Since then the numbers have been white framed with purple trim and no longer have a drop shadow. In 1999, the team also added side stripes to the Laker jersey.

The team adopted the special Sunday and holiday white Lakers jersey in 2002 in honor of sportscaster Chick Hearn, who was the voice of the Lakers’ play by plays for forty years. Jeannie Buss, daughter of the Los Angeles Lakers’s owner, Jerry Buss, designed the special white Lakers jersey.    

Only seven Los Angeles Lakers jerseys have been retired. Both Wilt Chamberlain jersey number 13 and Elgin Baylor jersey number 22 were retired on November 9, 1983. Jerry West jersey number 44 was retired on November 19, of the same year. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar number 33 was retired on March 20, 1989. Magic Johnson jersey number 32 was retired on February 16, 1992. James Worthy jersey number 42 was retired on December 10, 1995. And Gail Goodrich number 25 was retired on November 20, 1996.