I’ve been a Lakers fan for a long time. Since the middle 1960s, at the very latest. They tended to be on TV rather often, back then, in an era when sports-on-television was a luxury kids rarely missed.

They won, a lot, even when they were something like fifth or sixth in the L.A. sports pecking order (behind the Dodgers, Rams, USC football and UCLA basketball, at the least). And they had Chick Hearn calling the games. What was not to like, especially on some dull winter night?

I have never left the L.A. market, so I’ve seen all the Lakers, aside from some of the peripheral players from the very first few years.

And, since we all love lists, I’m going to do one on the hottest team in town, circa 2008.

These are my favorite Lakers, remember. Not my list of the best players. That would be a far different collection.

From 10th to first. The countdown:

10. Nick Van Exel. Yeah, a quirky pick. But this guy always amused me. He could play, no doubt, and was a key figure in the difficult years in the mid-1990s. But what I liked about him was that he looked like a baby. A 6-foot infant. He shaved his head and had these Byzantine-icon-sized eyes, and even with that nasty scar on his chin he looked as if he might have just crawled out of his crib to play hoops. He actually was edgy, and a bit of an attitude problem. Which just made him more fun. An edgy baby!

9. Robert Horry. The epitome of cool. The consummate pro. By the time the Lakers got him, in 1996, he was on the backside of his career. But he immediately grasped his status as a role player. Part of his acceptance was his fairly overt willingness to coast through the regular season before turning it up in the playoffs. He couldn’t cover any of the West’s top power forwards, and there were a lot of them, but he did just enough to keep it from being a season-killing issue. As a journalist, I liked him because he tended to hang around the locker room when other guys were hiding out, and just yak. And, then, there’s a reason he was known as “Big Shot Rob.” A clutch performer at all times whose buzzer-beating three-pointer from the top of the key to beat the Sacramento Kings in a pivotal playoffs game will live in Lakers history.

8. Rudy LaRusso. This is going back some, a shout out to the early-60s Lakers. LaRusso was the burly power forward on the West-Baylor teams, a guy who averaged something close to a double-double over his career. He wasn’t a guy with a lot of skill or athleticism, but he was a beast, a banger, and the one guy the finesse-oriented Lakers had to throw at the Celtics bruisers during most of those 1960s Finals showdowns.

7. Happy Hairston. A more athletic Rudy LaRusso (they were remarkably similar in physique; 6-7, 225 vs. LaRusso’s 6-8, 220) whose numbers were a bit better, especially on the rebounding side, but whose career with the Lakers was shorter. I always thought he was the unsung hero of the 1971-72 Lakers, averaging 13.1 rebounds and 13.1 points per game. Wilt Chamberlain got far more attention as in inside force, and rebounded considerably more that season (19.2 per game) but hardly scored any more than did Happy (14.8 ppg). And how can you not like a guy who went by “Happy” (instead of Harold)? Even if he often, as Chick would shout, “blows the layup!” Listening to Chick, you’d think Hairston missed four layups a game — except when you watched it on TV those “layups” often were six feet out and over a couple of defenders.

(A sidebar: It just now struck me that the Los Angeles Lakers never have had a superstar power forward. Never. Hairston is about as good as it gets. The rest of the time the Lakers were working with Bob McAdoo, Kurt Rambis, Mychal Thompson, Horry, Samaki Walker “just out there” kinda guys, and lots of them. They had superstars at every other position, but never at the “4” spot. Lamar Odom could end up their best power forward, but he needs to put in a few more productive years and win a couple of titles. Or it could be Pau Gasol, if Andrew Bynum turns into a player and Gasol is pushed to the “4” slot.)

6. Sasha Vujacic. This guy cracks me up. Anyone who calls himself “The Machine” then goes out and actually delivers like a metronome from behind the arc … how can you not be drawn to somebody like that? A great stroke on the three-pointers, a decent defender and an theatrical flopper. A flake, but a clever flake. Asked the other day how he could give “110 percent”, he said he “took 10 percent from the next guy” who then had to play at 90 percent.

5. William “Smush” Parker. He is my favorite anti-hero Laker. A relentlessly selfish and thoughtless punk, the embodiment of Lakers mediocrity the previous two seasons. The guy was as clueless as any NBA guy I’ve ever encountered, and that traverses vast swaths of cluelessness. A scrawny, blinged-out street baller with some primitive skills (penetrating, dunking). A man clearly unaware of his grand opportunity as a two-year starter in Staples, unwilling or incapable of running the triangle offense, concerned only with his shots, his stats. A guy who will never play on a championship team, yet a compelling figure because he was so massively, almost cartoonishly flawed. Smush will make me smile for years and years because he was so perfectly awful, so thoroughly unaware of it — and had that ridiculous nickname.

4. Magic Johnson. No Laker appeared to derive more joy from playing the game than did the Lakers’ 6-9 point guard. He was the director of “Showtime” and the the focal point of those five NBA title teams from the 1980s. A marvelous passer, great in the open court, and clutch. Remember the Junior Sky Hook? Remember the 42 point, 15 rebounds and seven assists he amassed in the clinching Game 6 in his rookie season, in 1980, when Kareem was out? I do.

3. Shaquille O’Neal. One big fun ride. A guy who invented nicknames for himself, who talked a lot — then went out and backed it up. The most overtly powerful force in the game since Wilt Chamberlain, and maybe ahead of Wilt given Shaq’s thicker build. At his height, during the 1999-2000 season, he was just unstoppable. He was stronger than any other two players in the league. He didn’t have the fine motor skills of other great centers, and his play could be clumsy, even brutish. But, man, was he a load. And funny as hell, when his remarkably sensitive feelings hadn’t been hurt. His dunks were earth-shaking events.

2. Kobe Bryant. The man has some baggage. No question. The episode in Eagle, Colo. The feud with Shaq. The broadsides aimed at teammates and management in the offseason last year. But I can forgive nearly all of that because this guy is a transcendent player, perhaps the greatest pleasure to watch in the history of the game. MichaelJordan was a better all-around player, but Kobe is more spectacular and far more inventive. He also has become a good interview, a team leader and did we mention that Kobe, by himself, makes Lakers games worth watching?

1. Jerry West. As much as any athlete I saw in my youth, I wanted to be Jerry West. Firing in jump shots from all over the court, a free-throwing machine, a sly defender. “Mr. Clutch,” Chick called him, “Zeke from Cabin Creek.” As a kid, I thought West was the Lakers because when I tuned in to the team Elgin Baylor was in his decline phase. And the Lakers’ first L.A. championship, in 1972, particularly pleased me because No. 44 got his first (and only) ring, as a player. He still would be No.1 on this list even if he hadn’t been so instrumental in the eight titles the franchise won with him in the front office. I mean, we’re talking about The Logo, here. A legend in L.A. and the league.

OK, some ‘splainin’. Five of the seven Lakers whose numbers have been retired, in L.A., are not on my list.

Here’s why:

Wilt doesn’t make the list because I don’t consider him a Laker, and the Wilt who played with the Lakers was near the end. Kareem isn’t on here because he was never fun to watch. He seemed to approach the game with the joy of a factory worker punching a time clock. He also was difficult for the media and, sorry, but that was me.

No Gail Goodrich because he seemed a little soft, a little opportunistic, a guy who traveled in West’s slipstream. Same thing with Elgin Baylor who, yes, was the star in West’s early years and allegedly was the free-styling prototype for later flair-soaked performers such as Doctor J. But Elgin was clearly the No. 2 guy by the time I started paying close attention.

And James Worthy, “Big Game” James … it seems like he was a function of Magic Johnson, so clearly the dominant personality on those 1980s teams. I wonder what percentage of Worthy’s points came from Magic feeding him the ball on the break. Ten percent? Twenty? Twenty-five? Thirty?

There’s my list. It’s personal. Make up your own.