The late great Kobe Bean Bryant once said “jobs not finished” when up 2-0 in the 2009 NBA Finals.
The 2020 Los Angeles Lakers took that to heart on their way to becoming NBA Champions.
October 11th, 2020 the Los Angeles Lakers finished the job as they secured the franchises 17th NBA Championship with a 106-93 victory against the Miami Heat.
From dysfunction to dominance. From agents of chaos to champions, the Los Angeles Lakers completed the wildest single-season swing in the history of basketball, becoming, in the process, just the third team in more than 60 years to win a title after finishing with a losing record the year before.
Behind the timeless talent of a 35-year-old LeBron James, and the unfathomable talent that is Anthony Davis, the Lakers are once again back on top of the NBA, restoring order to a bizarre 2020.
For James, it’s a fourth championship ring, a reward for a season in which he reasserted himself as the league’s best player.
For Anthony Davis, it was an emphatic delivery on all the promise of his move from New Orleans.
Together, those two in-sync superstars navigated a season of conflict and tragedy to help the NBA’s most glamourous franchise break free of a spin cycle of frustration and failure to reclaim its place as champions.
And what a journey it has been.
From being on lockdown in China to becoming a lockdown defense.
From early-season success to a midseason funeral for Kobe Bryant.
To a pandemic.
To the call for justice.
To a bubble.
To the playoffs.
Two teams.
Then one.
To a title.
To finally be able to breathe again.
This is how the Lakers did it. Or in meme-of-the-moment terms:
This is how it started vs. How it is now.
How it Started
There were few things that fueled Dr. Jerry Buss more than the idea of his Lakers hoisting more championship trophies than any other franchise. That, of course, would mean eventually catching up to their hated rivals in Boston, an achievement that would serve a dual purpose. He dreamed of seeing the headline, “Buss passes Celtics!”
His 34 years as owner saw the birth of Showtime, Shaq and Kobe, Phil Jackson, an excess of talent and success that resulted in 10 championships. After the Lakers triumph against the Celtics in 2010, the score stood at Boston 17, Lakers 16.
With L.A. having won five titles in 11 years, it appeared to be imminent that the Dr. Buss would get to see his dream of the Lakers surpassing the Celtics. But things never materialized.
After Buss’ death in 2013, it became increasingly difficult to see a path to the Lakers fulfilling their late owner’s dream.
Kobe Bryant tore his Achilles tendon four months after Buss’ death, slamming shut the championship window the Lakers had fought so fiercely to keep wedged open.
Shortly after Dwight Howard left Los Angeles for Houston, signaling the decline of the once glamours franchise.
Each of the first three years after Buss’ death, the Lakers set franchise records for losses, culminating with a league-worst 17 wins in 2015-16, Bryant’s final season. The next year, Jeanie Buss fired longtime general manager Mitch Kupchak and her brother Jim, the executive vice president of basketball operations.
Jeannie’s intervention was the beginning of restoring the Lakers franchise to its rightful place: atop the league.
She handed the keys to the franchise to franchise legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Rob Pelinka, Bryant’s longtime agent. It paid off immediately as the Lakers won the LeBron James sweepstakes in the summer of 2018.
But the Lakers front office success didn’t translate to on the court.
With a roster crowded with recent lottery picks, the Lakers won just 37 games in the 2018-19 season, one in which James missed a career-high 27 games with a strained groin and, for the first time in his career, looked remarkably human. He felt distant from the franchise in that first year, admitting before Game 5 of this season’s Finals that he quickly learned that “the Laker faithful don’t give a damn what you’ve done before. Until you become a Laker, you’ve got to do it with them, as well.”
In Year 1 of the LeBron James experiment the Lakers fell flat on their face. It was an embarrassment in many aspects. The season was hijacked by the failed, and very public, trade efforts for Anthony Davis, and ended with even more shame.
Magic Johnson dramatically resigned an hour before the final game of the season. Coach Luke Walton was fired days later.
The Lakers seemed no closer to a championship than at any point since their last title.
The franchise, spinning its wheels and stuck at 16 championships, was entering perhaps its most critical offseason in 2019. Rob Pelinka, and Jeannie Buss delivered.
After a season of sloppily kicking the tires on an Anthony Davis for the entire young core trade, the Lakers and Pelicans came to an agreement. LeBron James had his go to teammate, one he could trust.
The Lakers front office nearly struck on the trifecta, almost landing Kawhi Leonard. LeBron had been ready to yield to Leonard in much the same way he would with Davis.
All throughout the process, from the controversial phone conversations that Leonard’s uncle, Dennis Robertson, had with Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, to their meeting with Leonard and his associates four days later, there was confidence that he was coming their way.
On July 6, 2019 when Kawhi ultimately chose the Clippers over the Lakers, some of the bad taste of the unfortunate 7 year drought crept back into play. How could the Lakers lose out on a superstar to the Clippers? How could they now be left with a two man team and limited cap space to build a contender?
To put it simply, it could have been a disaster. Instead, with the Super Team model no longer viable for the Lakers and so many roster spots left to fill, Rob Pelinka pieced together a championship roster with a bunch of guys the league no longer wanted. Here is how they panned out by season’s end.
Good
| SIGNED | PLAYER | TERMS |
| July 6 | Rajon Rondo | 2 years, $2.6 million |
| July 6 | Kentavious Caldwell-Pope | 2 years, $16 million |
| Aug. 26 | Dwight Howard | 1 year, 2.5 million, non-guaranteed, after DeMarcus Cousins tears ACL in mid-August |
| Feb. 23 | Markieff Morris | $1.75 million, disabled player exception |
| July 6 | Alex Caruso | 2 years, $5.5 million |
Bad
| SIGNED | PLAYER | TERMS |
| July 6 | DeMarcus Cousins | 1 year, $3.5 million (tears ACL in mid-August) |
| July 6 | Quinn Cook | 2 years, $6 million |
In Between
| SIGNED | PLAYER | TERMS |
| July 6 | Danny Green | 2 years, $30 million |
| July 6 | JaVale McGee | 2 years, $8.2 million |
| July 8 | Avery Bradley | 2 years, $9.7 million |
From 3rd Option to Perfect Fit
Frank Vogel was lined up to serve as the right-hand man to Tyronn Lue who was in line to become the Lakers Head Coach. But after those talks fell through because the Lakers were unwilling to give Lue the money or the years that he felt were commensurate with his championship experience, the Lakers quickly struck a deal with Vogel.
Vogel was boring, had little pre-existing relationship with James and had been fired from his previous head coaching job after failing to win 30 games in either of his two seasons with the Orlando Magic.
He was perfectly willing to take on as his own lead assistant Jason Kidd, a two-time head coach who many saw as the team’s shadow coach whose only role would be to undermine and eventually replace Vogel.
In the medias eyes, Vogel didn’t have a chance to survive past the All Star Game.
Except Vogel turned out to be the perfect fit for this Lakers team.
Dating to his introductory press conference, Vogel has been a refreshing and steadying presence for an organization that had grown accustomed to turbulence.
Hours before Vogel’s introductory press conference, Magic Johnson was on ESPN giving a scathing critique of the Lakers operational structure and accused Pelinka of “backstabbing.”
Vogel, whose employment had just begun that day, volunteered himself as a shield for the franchise.
“Quite frankly,” Vogel said back on May 20, “the perception of our organization is very far from reality.”
Vogel, who took command of the situation on day one of his job, soon took control of the locker room.
He forged a partnership with his two stars, earning early buy-in from the entire roster, and installed a tough-minded system that would lead with defense. By opening the season with wins in 24 of their first 27 games, the Lakers relieved any perceived pressure on Vogel. The storyline of Kidd posing a threat never materialized, just one in a long line of anticipated distractions that never took root.
While Vogel had command of the locker room, he also became the face of the franchise in ways he never would have imagined, stepping forward as the team’s only representative to speak publicly in the first days after Kobe Bryant’s death in January.
Who would’ve thought?
China Controversy
After a 13-hour flight across the Pacific, the Lakers were greeted upon their arrival in Shanghai on Oct. 8 with a headline in the English-language Shanghai Daily that read, “Rockets in flames over HK protests.”
That headline was about Houston general manager Daryl Morey’s tweet in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. It soon became clear that Morey’s stance had put the entire NBA at odds with the Chinese government, including the two teams, the Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets, that were scheduled to play games that week in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
The Lakers were sequestered in the Shanghai Ritz, uncertain of whether their games would be played or if they would even be allowed to stay in the country.
Outside their room windows, players could watch as workers dangling from pulleys peeled the signage bearing the faces of NBA stars off of a high-rise. Players were thrust into meetings with commissioner Adam Silver, instructed on what to do and not do. Players did not speak to reporters in China, for fear of unintentionally worsening relations.
It was a trying ordeal for a team full of players still trying to get to know one another.
From Teammates to Brothers: Bonding Through Tragedy
We should have seen what 2020 had in store for us as early as January 26th. It started on the last Sunday morning in January when a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter slammed into the side of a hill in Calabasas. The TMZ headline was breathtaking when it came across, and its three words left little wiggle room for hope: KOBE BRYANT DEAD.
The death of Bryant was a tragedy felt worldwide, sending grief and shock through the shattered hearts of Lakers Nation and people across the globe.
That a 41-year-old global icon could fall from the sky and, along with his 13-year-old daughter, two of her teammates, their parents and a coach, die an unusually public death, brought a pain that was not exclusive to the Los Angeles Lakers.
When Kobe died, the Lakers team lost their brother, their child hood hero, their mentor. His death impacted each and everyone apart of the Lakers franchise.
Not that anything could make a death worse, but having seen Kobe along with Gigi back in the public picture court side at Lakers games made the sudden loss even more mind numbing. The night before the tragedy LeBron James surpassed Kobe on the all time scoring list.
The final social media post Bryant made before his death was on Instagram, celebrating James and encouraging him to “keep growing the game and charting the path for the next” generation.
The next morning, as the Lakers flew across the country, word reached their chartered plane. News videos showed a single plume of smoke rising from a hillside in Calabasas.
It was devastating news that altered the course of the season for the entire NBA, but also reshaped the Lakers purpose.
“We want to do it for him,” Davis said early on in the bubble.
From the moment the league indefinitely postponed the Lakers’ first game after the crash, to their next home game serving as a wake with Usher performing Amazing Grace, to wearing the uniforms Bryant designed in the biggest moments of their season, the Lakers carried a unique emotional burden.
The Lakers embraced their role in representing Bryant’s legacy as part of their championship run. “1-2-3 Mamba!” became a rallying cry in the bubble. They couldn’t close out the series in Game 5 while wearing the Black Mamba jerseys that Bryant had designed, with the 16 stars representing every Lakers championship on the side panel, but they got the job done with Kobe very much in their minds and hearts.
With the spirit of Kobe with them throughout their run, these Lakers have now added to that tally.
The Bubble and Social Justice
When the season resumed, LeBron James who is in his 17th season, had to encounter something completely new; a bubble.
Playing in an empty gym, something he hasn’t done since maybe middle school, had now become a reality. James and the rest of the Lakers were without their family. A pandemic was raging across the country, and the players still had their minds on something more.
A social justice fight.
The death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor had been a focal point of the entire league pre bubble, and continued to be inside the bubble.
When the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wis., inspired an historic players meeting inside the bubble on Aug. 26, there was a very real possibility that the Lakers run — and that of every other remaining playoff team — would come to an end. There was a real threat that the NBA season would once again be canceled, this time because of a senseless killing.
Tensions bubbled over, continuity was wavering, and the players were done with being “held captive” inside the bubble, unable to help and protest with the public.
“When I went to bed (after the meeting), I had major reservations about playing,” LeBron said. “It wasn’t what (the Bucks) said; we heard what they said. It was, ‘What the fuck are we going to do now? Are we just going to go back out there and play again, after all of this, with no plan?’ Nah. What was the plan? … I woke up Thursday morning and I came up with a plan.”
The plan included a phone conversation with Barack Obama about the best way to maximize this moment, with James, players union president/Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Chris Paul and other players discussing with the former President possible ways to spark even more change across the country. In the following days, the National Basketball Players Association and NBA made a joint announcement about the extensive measures that had been agreed upon with team owners to further social justice progress.
The season was once again back on, and so was the Lakers title aspirations.
They finished Portland off with a Game 5 close-out game in the first round on Aug. 29, downed Houston and Denver in five-game series, then headed to the Finals for the first time since 2010.
NBA Finals
Then came the Heat, this organization that provided James with his most formative NBA years during his time in Miami from 2010 to 2014. James and Davis continued their cohesive combo act, dominating the first two games of the series.
The Heat punched back, taking Game 3. But the Lakers were right where they wanted them, up 2-1 and eventually 3-1, heading into Game 5 with their Mamba jerseys on.
But the relentless Heat spoiled the celebration. Jimmy Butler exploded for one of the best NBA Finals performances the league has ever seen. Davis’ health woes late in Game 5 were ill-timed, when he re-aggravated a left heel injury and was slowed just enough to allow the Heat back in.
For the first time in the bubble the Lakers title chances were in slight doubt.
But Davis was healthy enough in Game 6, dropping 19 points and playing great defense. He averaged 25.7 points and 10.7 rebounds for the series, but came up short for Finals MVP.
LeBron won the award with averages of 29.8 points, 11.8 rebounds and 8.5 assists. He secured his 4th NBA Title and Finals MVP.
This One Means More
2020 has handed out L after L with each passing day. Every news headline that flashes on your screen passes along worse and worse news.
Icons are now discussed in past tense.
Hundreds of thousands have taken their final breath due to a disease that has changed our way of life like no other.
Countless others haven’t been able to breathe for 400 years due to systematic racism and hatred.
And through it all sports have been given the impossible task to take our minds off it all for 3 hours.
The 2020 Lakers, a team who has navigated through every tragedy thrown their way, did the impossible.
No I’m not talking about winning a title after 6 years in the gutter.
I’m talking about mending the broken soul of the city of Los Angeles. Putting a smile on a group of peoples faces for the first time since the calendar turned to 2020.
Making it possible for people like me to get lost in their play that I forget that the world has been on fire for the past 9 months. Even if it is only for 3 hours a night.
So yes this title means more. I needed it, the Lakers needed, the city of Los Angeles needed it.
