The Lakers Will Debut Those Sweet Magic Johnson-Era Throwbacks Against The Warriors

In recent years, the Los Angeles Lakers have yearned for the past at a greater level than arguably any NBA franchise. We’ve talked before about the greatest throwbacks the Lakers have had yet, but now we have confirmation of when we’ll first be able to lay eyes on them in action. Beginning on Friday night against the Golden State Warriors, Luke Walton’s team will be clad in gear that is becoming of the Showtime Lakers tradition.

On Thursday, the Lakers announced that the team would wear Hardwood Classics uniforms on three occasions this season, harkening back to the 1986-1987 team that won the first of back-to-back championships behind Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy. Los Angeles will don the throwbacks against the Warriors (Nov. 4), Denver Nuggets (Jan. 17) and Boston Celtics (Mar. 3), spreading out the splendor of the new threads over the course of the 82-game schedule.

This year’s Lakers team will not be reminding anyone of the good old days when Los Angeles was a perennial NBA title contender, but D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram and company have performed reasonably well in the small sample that is the end of October and the first few days of November, and optimism is beginning to surface. Wearing these jerseys won’t suddenly inspire fantastic play on the court, but the Lakers will look fantastic doing it and that will certainly matter to some corners of the NBA world.