Lawrence Tanter, Voice of the Lakers From Magic to Luka, Dies at 76

He started at the Forum in 1982, worked through 10 championships and stepped away after a stroke in March.

Lawrence Tanter, whose baritone introduced Lakers home games for more than four decades, died Wednesday, September 23, 2026, the team said. He was 76.

A stroke in March had already taken him off the microphone, the Los Angeles Times reported, and in June he'd moved into an advisory role with the team. If you've been to a Lakers home game any time since 1982, his was probably the voice that told you who was starting.

The moment most fans will replay came in 2020. Days after Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash, Tanter led a sold-out arena through a pregame that left people crying. He introduced each of the five Lakers starters the same way, with the call he'd made for Bryant so many times: "Number 24, 6-6, 20th year out of Lower Merion High School, Kobeeee Bryant."

He took the job in 1982, when the Lakers still played at the Forum, and kept it through Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, LeBron James and, last of all, Luka Doncic.

Ten championship seasons went by under that voice.

His famous calls hung on one stretched-out sound: "toooo many steps," "Kobeee Bryant," "Lllaker Girlsss." That was about as loud as he got. In a trade full of announcers who pump up a crowd with volume, Tanter stayed cool, and he told The Times' Bill Plaschke in June that he'd never set out to be a cheerleader. For a team that sold itself on Showtime glamour, the restraint fit better than any scream could have.

At 6-foot-7, he looked down at nearly everyone, and by the Times' account he met all of them with a smile and a conversation. He's in the Southern California Sports Broadcaster Hall of Fame.

"For 43 years, LT's voice served as the soundtrack to Lakers games at the arena," the team said in its statement Wednesday. Jeanie Buss, the Lakers' governor, posted on X that he was "a true original that added his unique style to Showtime."

Flea, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist and a longtime Lakers fan, wrote on X that Tanter loved talking jazz with him and was the best announcer in the NBA. "I realized when attending many other NBA arenas that no one else came close," he wrote.

Mychal Thompson, the former Lakers center who's now a team broadcaster, wrote on X that he hopes the Lakers wear an LT patch this season.

Tanter didn't need many words for his own goodbye. After he announced his retirement, he summed up the four decades plainly. "It's been a great run," he said. "I've been blessed."

Source: latimes.com, retrieved September 24, 2026.