Hall of Fame Lakers coach Kundla dies at 101

Hall of Fame Lakers coach John Kundla, voted one of the top 10 coaches in league history as part of the NBA at 50 festivities in 1997, died of natural causes at age 101 on Sunday, reports the Star Tribune's Joel Rippel and Pioneer Press' Andy Greder.

Kundla was the first head coach in franchise history, joining the Minneapolis Lakers for their inaugural season in 1947. After the team spent a season in the National Basketball League, the Lakers joined the Basketball Association of America, the forerunner of today's NBA.

The Lakers won the 1948 BAA championship before going on to win four of the first five titles in NBA history. From 1948-1959, Kundla boasted a 423-302 coaching record in the regular season with a roster featuring a bevy of eventual Hall of Famers, including George Mikan, Jim Pollard, Vern Mikkelsen, Slater Martin, and Clyde Lovellette. In Kundla's final year coaching in the professional ranks, the Lakers touted a young Elgin Baylor, who would capture Rookie of the Year honors in 1958-59.

Kundla left in 1959 to shepherd college basketball's Minnesota Golden Gophers for much of the 1960s. He was the first basketball coach in Gophers history to extend scholarship offers to African-American players.

For the 1970s and '80s, Kundla was little more than a footnote in the story of basketball. In 1995, though, Kundla finally received the call for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Fittingly, he was enshrined as part of a class that featured his former player Mikkelssen and Lakers icon Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. At the time of his death, Kundla was the oldest Hall of Fame member from any of the four major North American sports.