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The last time LeBron James wore a No. 23 jersey with the Lakers, the team won the 2020 NBA championship. That isn’t the primary reason he’s going away from No. 6 again in purple and gold, but the city of Los Angeles will just have to hope this shift yields the same results.
The No. 6 jersey James wore for the Lakers last season was grandfathered in when the NBA retired Bill Russell’s No. 6 league-wide, but according to his agent Rich Paul (in a statement to Dave McMenamin of ESPN), James will once again go back to his original No. 23 jersey out of respect for the late, great Celtics legend:
LeBron James will change his uniform from No. 6 to No. 23 next season. “It’s LeBron’s decision,” Rich Paul of Klutch Sports Group told ESPN. “He chose to out of respect for Bill Russell.” The NBA retired No. 6 league-wide last August; James wore it a final season to honor Russell
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) July 16, 2023
With this shift, James will now have changed jersey numbers (five times) more times than he’s changed teams (three times), although he has shifted from 23 to 6 or vice versa on every occasion.
James originally tried to give No. 23 to Anthony Davis in the summer of 2019, but it was too late in the summer to make such a change due to how many jerseys Nike had already made, so he opted to wait until the 2020 offseason to go back to 6.
But after Davis won a title in the No. 3 jersey he wore for his first season with the Lakers in 2019-20, he opted to keep it moving forward. At that time, Davis had hinted he would go back to No. 23 at some point, but it looks like that won’t be happening now, if there was ever any doubt.
So do you have a James No. 23 jersey in your closet from his first two seasons with the team? Well good — or bad? — news: It’s no longer a throwback.
You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.
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