Same Team 2 Retired Numbers

On December eighteenth and what was then the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Lakers made history when they retired Kobe Bryant's number eight and number twenty four jerseys, making him the first player in US major sports history to have two different numbers retired by the same team. Today, we're going to dive into how he got those two numbers retired and some interesting facts about retired jersey numbers today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge. And today's trivic question is what NBA team has the most retired jersey numbers? So first let's start out with what is a retired number. So a retired number is a number that the player wore while they played for the team, and it's usually reserved for some of the greatest players for that team that's ever played. But each team has lee away with how they do their retire jersey numbers. Some teams it's very hard to get a number retired. Some teams will give it to anybody. But it all started with Ace Bailey, who had his number six jersey retired by the Toronto Maple Leafs in nineteen thirty four, where he had played eight seasons there in his career, but his career was tragically cut short in the nineteen thirty three season when he was hit from behind during a game and his head hit the ice, fracturing his skull and caused him to convulse on the ice and caused him to go into a coma for ten days. He did make a full recovery and would go on to live until nineteen ninety two and live a full life, but sadly his playing days were over and the Maple League wanted to honor him, and so that's when they decided to retire his jersey so no other player would wear six if they played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and it wasn't long after it in nineteen thirty three, just a year later when they retired Raymond Flatteries number one jersey, where he was a seven time All Pro and led the league in the Triple Crown for receiving, leading in receptions, yards and touchdowns, helping lead them to helping lead them to a nineteen thirty four championship, and would eventually be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the Yankees retired Luke Gerrigs number four jersey after he had to retire to contracting als, which is better known as Luke Eyirig's disease. And the NBA has some unusual jersey number retirements, as the Atlanta Hawks retired number fifty nine for Cassim Reid, the fifty ninth mayor of Atlanta, for all he's done for the city, and the Miami Heat have retired two numbers for players that never played for them, which is Michael Jordan and Dan Marino who never played in the NBA, and the Sacramento Kings and Orlando Magic have retired the number six jersey for their sixth mans being the Fans. But the number six jersey was retired across the whole league after the passing of Bill Russell to honor all he did for the game, just like the Major League Baseball retired Jackie Robinson's number forty two and the NHL retired Wayne Gretzky's number ninety nine. So there have been a lot of crazy retirements and some teams are more stingier than others about what numbers they do retire. Some require players to be Hall of Famers, some require them just to have a whole career with that one team. Is really up to the executives of that team and who they really want to honor. But Kobe Bryant did something unusual after his historic career with the Lakers. He wore the number eight for the first ten years of his career in the number twenty four for the last ten years of his career. And because he had great success with both, they chose to honor both. And the reason being is his career when he wore number eight, they won three championships, he was an All Pro, an All Star eight times, and led the league in scoring multiple years. And if you just look at those ten years where he wore number eight, he would be borderline Hall of Famer. The New York of the years where he wore number twenty four, he had his only MVP season that the league, scoring multiple times, was an All Star every year and an All Pro multiple years, and won two more NBA championships. Again, that second half of his career with the number twenty four would be borderline Hall of Famers. You put that together, it's one great Hall of Fame career. So they couldn't decide, so they retired both numbers, being the first team to do so. Now, the question is why did Kobe Bryant change his number? There have been other people that have changed his numbers. Michael Jordan briefly wore number forty five, and Lebron James has gone back and forth between the number six and number twenty three throughout his career, and other players have changed their numbers for various reasons. And there's actually multiple reasons why Kobe Bryant changed his number. Unfortunately, he's passed away so he can no longer comment, but he did say he just wanted a new start and wanted to show what he could do on his own in this new era of Laker basketball because he had some multiple things happen as a sexual mixed conduct case that came against him in Colorado while he was still with the Lakers in War number eight, and after the dust settled on that case, he decided to change his number. Also at that time, he had severed ties with Adidas, who had used the number eight in a lot of his shoes, and wanted to not be associated with Adidas anymore, and so he changed his number also to twenty four, and many also lists that he wanted the chance to make more money from jersey sales. If you change your number, fans are going to have to buy your new jersey. Now that last one is probably less likely, but really Kobe wanted a chance at a new start, and he really showed that he was just just as good, if not better, with the number twenty four. But arguably his greatest moment when he scored eighty one points was when he had the number eight jersey, so he always remembered for the great things he did in the number eight, like his three championships, But he also wanted to break away from Shaquille O'Neal and all they had gone through, as it had been a toxic relationship, and he wanted a new start, and at number twenty four he won two championships without O'Neill and showed how he could be a leader on his own instead of the co leader he had with Shaquille O'Neal in his first three championships. Unfortunately, we all know that Kobe Bryant tragically passed away and so his greatness can only live on in highlights. But he was great enough to have two numbers retired, giving the Lakers thirteen retired numbers, and the team in the NBA with the most retired numbers is the Boston Celtics with twenty four retired numbers. Now, this becomes an issue with these great teams such as the Boston Celtics and in other leagues like the New York Yankees. Eventually you're going to run out of numbers. You have so much success and so many great players. Eventually, if you retire all the numbers of your great players, you won't have any to go by. And normally leagues only allow numbers between zero and ninety nine. That may have to be expanded as these teams continue to have great players have these numbers retired. And I want to thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want more NBA content, check out the Dime Droppers podcast, where your host Darien gives you an unapologetic take on the realities of the NBA in the world around it, celebrating the love that goes into professional sports and the social impact that it has. It's a great opportunity. We'll put a link in the description below for you to check it out, as it's a great podcast to dive into even more in the NBA. And if you enjoy today's episode, please like and subscribe wherever you're at. That way you don't miss a single episode. And did you catch the answer to today's trivic question what NBA team has the most retired jersey numbers? And the answer is the Boston Celtics with twenty four jerseys retired. It makes sense with all the championships they've won, the great players they've had throughout the years. But wonder what will happen as there's less numbers for new players to take pam pinject from Brian Pat