LOS ANGELES — Jerry Buss’ door was always open to George Mikan.
Patrick Mikan, one of George’s sons, remembered visits to L.A., when the two men – Mr. Basketball and the man who helped bring together the Showtime Lakers – would spend time talking hoops. A promise Buss made George stands out in Patrick’s memory: “One day, your name will be up in lights.”
Neither George Mikan nor Jerry Buss is still here to see it, but the Buss family kept its promise to the Mikan family on Sunday afternoon when they unveiled his No. 99 jersey above the crowd at Crypto.com Arena. Patrick and Michael Mikan were clad in coats meant for their father – NBA 75th anniversary team jackets – and they watched with mouths agape from midcourt.
While George Mikan, the NBA’s first dominant big man and the crux of five championship teams, never played in Los Angeles, the family feels strongly that he is a contiguous part of the franchise’s history and have waited decades for him to join Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar, O’Neal and Bryant in Lakers’ lore.
Shaq once told Mikan, Patrick remembered: “Without you, there would be no me.”
A bespeckled man who towered over the rest of the NBA of his time at 6-foot-10, Mikan paved the road for the franchise centers who would follow. He played seven seasons in Minneapolis, averaging 23.1 points and 13.4 rebounds (rebounds were not an official stat in his first two seasons). He retired for good in 1956, four years before the Lakers’ first season in L.A.
One of his most enduring legacies is still alive today: The Mikan drill, a lay-up combination using both hands that is a hallmark of all big men at all levels of basketball.
“I haven’t been that long where I remember watching him play,” quipped Nuggets coach Michael Malone. “When I think of George Mikan, I think of championships, winning and the fact that it would be pretty cool to have a drill named after you that everybody’s been using from NBA players to CYO players,”
A statue of Mikan greets fans in the Target Center in Minneapolis where the Timberwolves play; nonetheless, the Lakers consider him a part of their legacy. The franchise considered retiring his number around 2002, Patrick said, when they hosted a “reunion” for several of the players who were on the Minneapolis teams. It didn’t happen then, but Buss promised Mikan it would happen one day.
Conversations ramped up in February, when Michael Mikan represented his father on the NBA’s 75th anniversary team. Several Lakers greats there didn’t know that Mikan had never had his number retired; it wasn’t long after that the Mikans began talking with Jeanie Buss and Linda Rambis about getting it done.
Related Articles
Russell Westbrook, Lakers break through for a win against Nuggets
Lakers grapple with mental toll of injuries, 0-5 start
Lakers bring Westbrook off bench, but Timberwolves extend their winless start
Lakers’ Anthony Davis sits out with lower back soreness
Is LeBron James going his own way on offense as Lakers struggle?
It seemed fitting that the Lakers retired the number on a night when they wore the white-and-powder blue throwbacks hearkening to the Minneapolis era. The most special part for Patrick was that 24 members of the Mikan family were in attendance.
“My dad was proud to be a Laker,” he said. “They were just so gracious to do that, to bring the whole family. The Lakers wanted us to have the best experience possible. … I’m a little overwhelmed.”