The Los Angeles Lakers were forced to pursue various minimum players after the team traded for superstar Russell Westbrook. The Lakers were already restricted financially and restricted themselves further while also flipping three role players for one player in the rotation.
That being said, Rob Pelinka did an excellent job of building a deep roster that can contend for an NBA Championship. The roster is old, sure, but it currently has 13 legitimate rotation players that can play a role.
Typically teams will have non-impactful players (think Jared Dudley) after that 10th or 11th roster spot. The Lakers have 13 and will likely make it 14 before the season. Those few extra players can make a huge difference with the fitness of the team for the playoffs.
Whether by design or not, Pelinka brought back several players who previously played for the Lakers. Dwight Howard, Rajon Rondo, Wayne Ellington, Kent Bazemore and Trevor Ariza all previously played for the Los Angeles Lakers and are hoping that their second (or third) stints can be impactful.
There are some great examples of players having two stints with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Los Angeles Lakers are the most prestigious team in the NBA and there is a massively long laundry list of superstars that have donned the purple and gold. Some players loved it so much that they had to wear it twice.
There are three excellent examples of players who had two different stints with the Lakers and made the most of them. And for simplicity’s sake, we are drawing a boundary. The player had to play a full season in their second stint (so no Vlade Divac) and had to play for another team in-between (Magic Johnson’s return does not count).
Without further ado, let’s get into the three best players who had two stints on the Los Angeles Lakers.
3. Dwight Howard
Dwight Howard is on his third stint with the Los Angeles Lakers and he is likely hoping to pick off where he left off in his second stint. There was a miscommunication last offseason and Howard legitimately thought he was returning to the Lakers.
Instead, the team was really looking to go in another direction with Montrezl Harrell and Marc Gasol and did not offer a contract to Howard. Howard signed with the Philadelphia 76ers and not even a year after winning the title with the Lakers he is back in LA.
The Lakers noticed the errors in their ways at the center position as both Harrell and Gasol have been traded away. This is the classic case of a team simply not overthinking it. All the Lakers need is a rim-protecting, rebounding center and it has that in Howard and DeAndre Jordan.
Howard’s first stint with the Los Angeles Lakers was an extreme disappointment. He was brought in alongside Steve Nash and was meant to help in this new era of Lakers basketball to give Kobe Bryant another ring late in his career.
It blew up in the Lakers’ faces. Kobe and Howard did not get along, Nash’s career was essentially over and Kobe got hurt at the end of the season, ending any hopes of a miracle run in the playoffs.
Howard quickly bounced to Houston and bounced around the league thereafter. He returned to the Lakers for the 2019-20 season as a flier signing after DeMarcus Cousins tore his ACL and turned out to be a great signing for the team.
He became the team’s only usable center in the 2020 NBA Playoffs and even made the last shot of the 2020 season: a three-pointer.
2. Gail Goodrich
Gail Goodrich is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and even has his no. 25 retired by the Los Angeles Lakers. That might seem like grounds to easily make him the best player to have two stints with the Lakers but we will address why he is not no. 1 when we get to the actual no. 1.
Goodrich had an exceptional career with the Lakers. He wound up playing 687 games with the Lakers in his two stints and averaged 19.2 points, 4.0 assists and 3.2 rebounds per game. He was the third option on the 1972 NBA Championship team that finally got Jerry West over the hump behind both West and Wilt Chamberlain.
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Goodrich had a fantastic two-year playoff run for the Los Angeles Lakers. In 27 games in the 1971 and 1972 NBA Playoffs, Goodrich averaged 24.5 points, 5.2 assists and 2.8 rebounds. He was a huge part of the Lakers winning the title.
Goodrich had a two-season stint with the Phoenix Suns and he was not traded nor signed with the Suns. Instead, Goodrich was taken in the expansion draft by Phoenix, who traded him back to LA after two seasons.
1. Derek Fisher
Gail Goodrich was absolutely a better basketball player in terms of his production on the floor but when it comes to overall Lakers legacy, it is tough to argue Goodrich over Derek Fisher. Yes, Goodrich’s play put him in the Hall of Fame and rightfully so, but Fisher did more for the Lakers and was part of more memorable moments.
It is not every day that a player can win five championships with a single team and actually be a producer on those five teams. Fisher may not have been the second or even the third-best player on any of those teams but there is no denying that he was a contributor and exactly the kind of point guard the Lakers needed to play alongside Kobe Bryant.
Fisher was there for the three-peat with Kobe and Shaq and even had one of the most iconic moments from that run. Fisher drained a game-winning shot against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the 2004 Western Conference Finals on an inbound pass with 0.4 seconds left on the clock.
The Lakers did not end up winning the title that year but if they did, Fisher’s shot would probably be remembered in the same breath as Robert Horry’s game-winner against the Sacramento Kings.
Fisher left the Lakers after that season and spent two years with the Golden State Warriors and a year with the Utah Jazz. Prior to the 2007-08 season, Fisher signed a three-year deal to return to the Lakers and spent four and a half seasons in LA before LA traded him to Houston in 2012.
Five championships, over 7,000 points scored and the second-most three-pointers in franchise history; that sounds like the best player to ever have two stints with the Los Angeles Lakers.