Seemingly every night, someone is doing something historical in the NBA. Yet no matter how many times it happens or how gaudy the stats are, more times than not, they seem to mostly come from the Los Angeles Lakers.
There’s a reason why they’re considered, along with the Boston Celtics of course, as the most historic franchise in the history of the NBA. They’ve collected the second most championships and are responsible for the second most Hall of Famers in league history.
With a long list of greats, comes an even longer list of great performances. To find out who stands out amongst their star-studded peers, we’ve come up with a list of the 30 best single-game performances in Laker history. Your usual suspects have all made the list. From Kobe Bryant to Magic Johnson, they’ve all predictably earned a spot but we’ve sprinkled in a few unsung heroes that aren’t always mentioned but earned their way here with once in a lifetime type games.
Even without a championship on the line, that doesn’t diminish from what these players have managed to accomplish. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a group of players from any organization who performed better when the lights were brightest. So from a city where the spotlight is always burning hot, who didn’t shy away from the moment and turned in an all-time great performance?