The 75 greatest Lakers: Time for your vote

Welcome to a very special Lakers newsletter in which we ask you, dear readers, to help us pick the 75 greatest Lakers in franchise history.

It’s a welcome diversion from the current season, with the Lakers seemingly trying to address 75 different problems without ever quite figuring out the answers. The team will have plenty of time for dissection with the current product.

For now, let’s look back.

You decide

So here’s the deal. In honor of the Lakers’ 75th anniversary this season (the NBA turned 75 last year), we took on the monumental task of ranking the top 75 players of all time, calling on an esteemed panel of current and former NBA writers and columnists from The Times.

And I voted too.

Now, we want you to tell us who you believe are the 10 greatest Lakers. Minneapolis and Los Angeles are included, so don’t hesitate to put someone like George Mikan on your list. Compile your list of the 10 greatest Lakers, in order from 1 to 10, and email it to houston.mitchell@latimes.com.

You will not receive a sticker, so your friends are going to have to take your word that you participated in Lakersocracy.

You’re going to have to make some tough choices — spoiler alert: Pau Gasol didn’t crack my top 10.

We voted on players only — our rules were you needed to be judged solely as a player and needed to play 100 or more games for the franchise — but you can include nonplayers. So if you think Chick Hearn or Jerry Buss or Jack Nicholson or Phil Jackson deserve a spot in the top 10, feel free to vote for them. Also, you can take into account Jerry West was an excellent executive. As a player he obviously cracked our top five, but could he be No. 1 overall in your poll?

You have until Dec. 1 to vote. First place on your ballot will receive 12 points, second place gets nine points, third place eight points, etc. The readers’ top 10 will be announced soon after voting closes.

And make sure you check out all of our 75 years of Lakers coverage by clicking here.

In the meantime. …

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