The first time it was pure, pinch-me luck that plopped the biggest name in basketball right smack into the lap of the Lakers.

But in the intervening 70 years, across stays in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, the franchise has turned the practice of acquiring a fortunes-turning headliner into something resembling standing operating procedure.

So, while the Lakers’ securing of LeBron James is big stuff, sending ripples through the league, it can hardly be deemed a surprise.

Or, shouldn’t be. Not after George Mikan, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal, established stars all, have trod the red carpeted path before him. Call it the L.A. way.

Over their history the Lakers have won 16 NBA championships, five in their Minneapolis incarnation and 11 in L.A. That’s second most in league history to the Boston Celtics’ 17.

All but three for the Lakers were nailed down with Mikan, Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar or O’Neal coming aboard to play major roles.

For all the homegrown talent, including Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, that the Lakers have amassed through the draft and nurtured, it is the marquee additions that have made the purple and gold NBA royalty.

Now, we wait to see if James, over the course of his contracted four-year, $154 million stay, with help no doubt on the way, can restore the crown.

This time the circumstances were just more desperate than before. After a franchise-record five years without so much as a playoff berth, it behooved Magic Johnson, the Lakers’ president of basketball operations, to go to the dog-eared playbook of his predecessors, Fred Schaus, Pete Newell and Jerry West, for a solution.

Following a 126-284 run across the tenures of three head coaches (not counting wannabe LaVar Ball), the target was simple, even if the process was not: James.

The Lakers stumbled on what was to become formula innocently enough. In 1948 when the short-lived Professional Basketball League collapsed from under the Chicago America Gears, the resulting dispersal draft gifted the Lakers with the 6-foot, 10-inch Mikan, an All-American two years out of DePaul.

He became the NBA’s inaugural superstar, helping propel the Lakers to the league’s first dynasty with six titles in a seven-year span (1948-49 to 1953-54).

In 1968, tired of taking a backseat to the Boston Celtics, the Lakers swung a three-for-one trade for Chamberlain, the reigning league MVP who did his part to facilitate the move by feigning interest in the year-old, rival American Basketball Association if his demands weren’t met. His arrival in tinsel town paid off in the 1971-72 championship.

Next, in 1975, came the four-for-one trade for Abdul-Jabbar, who spent 14 years in L.A. and took part in five NBA championships.

Then, not even the advent of the salary cap could constrain the Lakers’ machinations in 1996 as West juggled things to not only bring in O’Neal but work a draft day sleight of hand deal for Kobe Bryant. O’Neal stayed around to contribute to three titles in a seven-year stay.

Surprise that James ended up in L.A.? It shouldn’t be. No team in the NBA has mastered the art of the really big fix as well — or as long — as the Lakers.