a player, he ranked — and still ranks — as one of the best ever to play in the NBA. That’s his silhouette you see on the NBA logo that adorns every uniform and every NBA-related piece of merchandise.
As a coach, he never had a losing season and took his team to the playoffs in each of the three years he was in command.
As a general manager, in establishing the Lakers as a dynasty, he built some of the greatest teams in Lakers history, from refining the already fluid Magic Johnson-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar “Showtime” unit to engineering the sniping Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal bunch. The Lakers went to the NBA Finals eight times and won four championships in his 18 seasons as a Lakers executive, and teams he’d built won two more titles after he’d retired.
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