The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Lakers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league’s Western Conference Pacific Division. The Lakers play their home games at Crypto Arena. The franchise began with the 1947 purchase of a disbanded team of the National Basketball League (NBL). The new team began playing in Minneapolis, Minnesota, calling themselves the Minneapolis Lakers. Initially a member of the NBL, the Lakers won the 1948 NBL championship before joining the Basketball Association of America (BAA), where they would win five championships. After struggling financially in the late 1950s, they relocated to Los Angeles before the 1960–61 season. The Los Angeles Lakers made the NBA Finals six times in the 1960s. In 1968, the Lakers acquired Wilt Chamberlain, and won 1972 NBA title. While the team was unable to advance to the Finals in the late 1970s, they drafted Magic Johnson first overall in the 1979 NBA draft. With Johnson, the Lakers became an NBA powerhouse throughout the 1980s. The franchise won five championships in a nine-year span. After that, the Lakers struggled in the early 1990s. It was not until 1996 when the team signed Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal that the Lakers returned to dominance during the early 2000s. They went straight to three consecutive championships from 2000 to 2002. The team had 3 more championships in 2009, 2010 and 2020. Twenty-six Hall of Famers have played for Los Angeles Lakers, while four have coached the team.