The NBA released its 75th-year anniversary team last season with current and former Los Angeles Lakers dominating the list. The Lakers had 18 representatives, second-most behind the Boston Celtics, including at the time four current Lakers — LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony.
The list could have included more Lakers. Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard each missed out, joining a group of non-Lakers such as Vince Carter, Klay Thompson and Kyrie Irving that didn’t receive enough votes.
Players part of the 75th-anniversary team were honored at the 2022 All-Star weekend, which included a heartfelt speech from Shaquille O’Neal. TNT recreated iconic moments of the 75th-anniversary team and a video ad with current and former Lakers.
Now this year, the Lakers have been celebrating a 75th anniversary of their own with another successful season that ended in the Western Conference Finals. As a way to commemorate 75 years of Lakers basketball, popular Los Angeles muralist Jonas Never shared a sneak peek of an anniversary team mural with the purple and gold members, via Instagram:
The mural, in partnership with the Lakers and Bibigo, includes Shaq in the center with the No. 24 Kobe on his left and the No. 8 Kobe on his right. Gasol has an arm around No. 24 Kobe with Davis and LeBron rounding out that side. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is next to the No. 8 Kobe, but it’s unclear who is next to Kareem.
Never writes he will post the entire mural soon and that this is just a small portion of it. There are no other details available regarding a location, although he did reveal it is in Koreatown.
This isn’t the first time that Never has created a Lakers mural in the city. Never painted the infamous LeBron mural in 2018 when the King decided to come to L.A. Unfortunately, the mural was taken down by Never after it continued to be vandalized. He also painted a LeBron Space Jam theme mural in 2021.
His artwork caught the attention of the Lakers, who trusted him with painting the 75th-anniversary mural, yet another special moment in the purple and gold’s history.
Dwight Howard expresses desire to end beef with Shaq
If there’s one thing you shouldn’t do when around Lakers great Shaq is tell him Dwight Howard’s the real Superman. The Deisel constantly mocked Howard through the years, even though it’s been 15 years since Howard used a Superman cape during the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.
Howard though doesn’t have any problems with Shaq, expressing he hopes to end the beef with the big man.
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