Lawrence Tanter

Lawrence Tanter died on September 23, 2026, at the age of 76. The Los Angeles Lakers announced his passing and said he would be remembered as a cherished member of the Lakers family. No cause of death has been made public. He had stepped back from announcing earlier that year after a stroke in March 2026, according to sources who spoke to ESPN, and he formally retired as PA announcer at the end of the 2025-26 season while remaining an advisor on game presentation. Tributes from the organization, from players past and present, and from fans arrived quickly after the announcement. Details of a funeral or public memorial had not been widely announced at the time of reporting.

Lawrence Tanter was born in Chicago on October 11, 1949. As a boy he played basketball and also the saxophone and clarinet. Standing six foot seven, he earned a basketball scholarship to the University of Dubuque in Iowa, where he played forward for the Spartans. Answering an ad for a host of a Sunday night jazz program on the campus radio station gave him his first real taste of broadcasting. That accident of timing, as much as his athletic scholarship, shaped the rest of his career.

Tanter moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s and worked at KJLH, helping drive the station's quiet storm format. Jazz remained a second home for him for decades. He worked as a disc jockey on KTWV 94.7 The Wave and later as program director of public jazz station KKJZ. He also announced for LTV, the Lakers pregame and postgame show on KCAL-TV during the team's years on that station.

His defining role began at the start of the 1982-83 NBA season, when he became the Lakers' public address announcer. He held the job for 43 seasons, longer than anyone else in franchise history, calling games at the Forum and later at Staples Center and Crypto.com Arena. During his tenure the Lakers won 16 Western Conference championships and 10 NBA titles. His unhurried baritone introductions became part of the soundtrack of Showtime, of the Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant dynasty, and of the LeBron James years.

In 2009, when WWE and the Denver Nuggets clashed over an arena date, Tanter was recruited as guest ring announcer for a relocated Raw at Staples Center. In the 2020 NBA bubble he recorded an array of starting-lineup introductions from a home studio in Porter Ranch so editors could rebuild a home-game feel for Lakers games played in Florida. After a stroke in March 2026 that caused him to miss the final six home games of that season and the playoffs, he retired as PA announcer at the end of 2025-26 but stayed with the Lakers as a game-presentation advisor.

Tanter made his professional life in Los Angeles after leaving Chicago and college in Iowa. He was known in local radio circles as much for jazz programming as for basketball, and colleagues often linked his smooth announcing style to that musical background. Public reporting has not widely documented details of his marriage or children. During the pandemic bubble season he worked from a home studio in the Porter Ranch area of Los Angeles, a mundane detail that later underscored how thoroughly his voice had been woven into Lakers game presentation.

Tanter left behind the longest PA announcing tenure in Lakers history and a voice that several generations of fans associated with walking into a Lakers home game. Jeanie Buss and other team officials credited him with narrating every chapter of modern Lakers basketball and connecting fans across eras. Beyond the arena he helped define quiet storm and jazz radio in Los Angeles and steered KKJZ as program director. Compilations of his player introductions, including tributes after his death and earlier features such as CBS Los Angeles' Legends profile, continue to circulate as a record of how one baritone voice became part of a franchise's identity.