{"id":686339,"date":"2026-03-29T17:22:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T17:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/686339\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T17:22:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T17:22:44","slug":"lakers-jersey-history-no-31-zelmo-beaty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/686339\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers jersey history No. 31 \u2014 Zelmo Beaty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Through the 2024-25 season, the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> have had a total of 506 players suit up for them, going back to their days in Minneapolis. Some were forgettable, some were serviceable, some were good and a select few were flat-out legendary.<\/p>\n

During the Lakers’ 80th season of existence (they were founded back in 1946 as the Detroit Gems in the National Basketball League), LeBron Wire is taking a look at each player who has worn their jersey, whether it has been a purple and gold one or the ones they donned back in the Midwest during their early years.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Zelmo Beaty, a 6-foot-9, 225-pound big man, was one of basketball’s lesser-known stars in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was the No. 3 overall pick in the 1962 NBA Draft by the St. Louis Hawks, and in seven seasons with the Hawks, he averaged 17.4 points and 11.2 rebounds a game and made two All-Star games.<\/p>\n

He decided to jump to the rival American Basketball Association (ABA) afterward, and he had four fine seasons there with the Utah Stars, during which he made three ABA All-Star teams. His final season came with the Lakers during the 1974-75 campaign back in the NBA.<\/p>\n

That year, he put up 5.5 points and 4.7 rebounds in 17.6 minutes a game for the rebuilding Lakers. He finished his career with averages of 17.1 points and 10.9 rebounds per game across both the NBA and ABA.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Lakers jersey history No. 31 \u2014 Zelmo Beaty<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Through the 2024-25 season, the Los Angeles Lakers have had a total of 506 players suit up for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[20157,7,33982,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,1913,6,16449],"class_list":{"0":"post-686339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-aba","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-detroit-gems","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-lakers","13":"tag-lakers","14":"tag-lalakers","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-losangeleslakers","19":"tag-national-basketball-league","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-st-louis-hawks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116313623367389158","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}