Los Angeles Lakers: Top 10 NBA Draft picks in franchise history

5. Gail Goodrich (PG/SG) — Territorial pick in 1965 NBA Draft

Career stats (as a Laker):  687 GP, 19.0 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 4.2 APG, 1.5 STL, 0.2 BLK, 46.0 FG%, 81.7 FT%

One of the NBA’s first monstrously efficient scoring guards, Gail Goodrich checks in at No. 5 on our list.

The left-handed scorer’s career accolades include five All-Star Game appearances and one All-NBA First Team berth in 1974. He also won a title with the 1972 Los Angeles team that featured Wilt Chamberlain and one other guy who’s coming up on our countdown.

Goodrich didn’t win Finals MVP that year, but he made a strong case by averaging 25.6 points per game on 46.9 percent shooting for the series.

We mentioned that Goodrich was one of the first truly efficient scorers in league history, and part of that had to do with his ability to get to the foul line. For a six-year stretch between 1968 and 1974, the southpaw averaged 6.5 free-throw attempts.

Even by today’s standards, that’s noteworthy; plop his 6.5-free-throw-attempt average into 2017’s leader-board and he would be ninth among all guards, right between John Wall and Kyle Lowry.

His instincts as a scorer made him stand out in an era overflowing with transcendent guard play. And had his peak coincided with the three-point shot’s inception in the NBA, his already-impressive numbers would be even more absurd.

(Oh, also important is that late in his career, Goodrich signed with the New Orleans Jazz. By acquiring him, New Orleans was forced to hand over their first round draft picks in 1977 and 1979 to Los Angeles — the latter of which ended up being the No. 1 overall selection. The player eventually drafted at No. 1 in 1979 would change the course of Lakers history…but we’ll get to him later.)