Jordan Hill has promise, but not enough to really offer anything for. The bottom line is that in the big picture of the trade market, the Lakers are flat broke. But what about all that cash they have to spend in free agency in ?
Everyone would love to come and play for the Lakers! For every player who grew up dreaming of helping the Lakers win the title, there are at least two who grew up with hopes of defeating them for a title. Their reputation for landing whomever they want, whenever they want is inflated to the point of hyperbole.
Metta World Peace? They got left at the dance. Is it possible that other players would choose a different path? Sure, but why would they? Neither player is in need of that. Anthony was sixth. Neither player is going to get paid more if they switch teams.
Going to LA is no guarantee of winning one, or even having a chance at winning one. Nor does taking all the blame from media and fans if the team loses while getting none of the glory if they win hold any appeal. If either player were to abandon their present team to win, they would do so to go to a team that has the pieces in place already.
Before Buss, a pro basketball game was just a sporting event. Buss recognized that it would take more than just sports to make basketball into a true media sensation. He augmented the Lakers by adding copious amounts of entertainment to live games. This included everything from cheerleaders to musical accompaniment to light shows and half-time performers.
Buss also knew that the more celebrities he could get at games, the more allure the Lakers would take on for everyday fans. He catered to high-profile attendees through premium seating, the Forum Club, and other exclusive benefits for A-listers.
Reed sat out Game 6, and the Lakers rolled to a victory behind Wilt Chamberlain, who had 45 points and 27 rebounds, and West, who had 31 points and 13 assists. It looked as if the Knicks would be without Reed in the deciding game.
Then, moments before tip-off amid a deafening roar from the crowd at Madison Square Garden, Reed hobbled onto the court. He then scored the first two baskets of the game before returning to the bench, but the damage was done. With the crowd and Reed's teammates inspired, the Lakers fell, For the seventh time in nine years the team had reached the Finals and come away empty.
The season saw the league expand to 17 teams and four divisions. The Lakers had Wilt Chamberlain back and healthy, but Elgin Baylor played in only two games because of ongoing knee problems. The team was helped by the addition of Harold "Happy" Hairston, who had joined the club midway through the previous season, and Gail Goodrich, who returned to Los Angeles after two years in Phoenix. With Baylor missing, West The Lakers finished and won the Pacific Division, seven games ahead of second-place San Francisco.
The team had to make do without Baylor, who retired early in the season after realizing that his legs were not going to hold up through another year. The Lakers may have lost Baylor, but they did have a balanced, mature, and experienced team with Hairston and second-year player Jim McMillian as forwards, Chamberlain in the pivot, and West and Goodrich at the guard spots.
The Lakers went through the first month of the season. On November 5 they beat Baltimore, , marking the first of 14 straight wins in November. December saw them take 16 games without a loss. Along the way, the Lakers shattered the NBA mark of 20 consecutive victories set by the Milwaukee Bucks just one season before.
Los Angeles won three straight to open the new year before the Bucks finally ended the string on January 9, besting the Lakers, At that point the Lakers had rung up a game winning streak, an American professional sports record. The team rolled on to a win year, setting a new NBA record for victories in a season, a record that would stand until the Chicago Bulls went Chamberlain averaged a career-low West led the league by dishing out 9.
The team paced the league in points, rebounds, and assists. The Lakers breezed right through the playoffs, sweeping the Chicago Bulls in the conference semifinals, ousting the Bucks in six games in the conference finals, and then zipping by the Knicks in the Finals, four games to one. After years of frustration the Lakers had finally earned an NBA Championship, the team's first in Los Angeles and the first for the franchise since Chamberlain was named Most Valuable Player of the Finals. The Lakers didn't match their record pace of the previous season during the campaign although they won all 12 of their games in November , but they did roll to another Pacific Division title by winning 60 games overall.
Wilt Chamberlain, playing in his final season, led the league in rebounding for the 11th time in his career. He also became the first player in NBA history to record a field-goal percentage above. Los Angeles needed seven games to get by the Chicago Bulls in the conference semifinals, but they then breezed past the Golden State Warriors in the Western Division Finals.
Los Angeles took the first game by three points, but the Knicks employed a pressing, trapping defense that forced the Lakers into an average of 19 turnovers and held them under points in each of the final four games. New York took the series in five games to wrest the title away from the defending champions. Chamberlain, now 37 years old, retired. He left the NBA with a career average of Of the 57 top scoring performances in NBA history, he had accounted for In 14 years he had accumulated more than 31, points and had pulled down more than 23, rebounds.
For the season the Lakers picked up promising young defensive center Elmore Smith to plug the hole in the middle, and they also acquired Connie Hawkins to add some punch to the offense. But the team was hampered by the loss of Jerry West, who lasted only 31 games before his year-old legs finally gave out. By that point the team's real star was Gail Goodrich, who averaged Trailing Golden State by three games with seven left to play, the Lakers rallied to win the Pacific Division with a record, three games ahead of the Warriors.
Los Angeles advanced to the postseason but managed only one win against Milwaukee in the conference semifinals. The season found the Lakers in transition. West had retired after 14 incredible seasons in a Los Angeles uniform. Clutch had led the Lakers to the playoffs in every season of his career, including nine trips to the NBA Finals. He finished with 25, career points and an average of Truly one of the league's all-time greats, West scored more points as a Laker than any other player in the franchise's history.
For the team signed Cazzie Russell, who played just 40 games before a knee injury ended his season. Despite the addition of Lucius Allen Los Angeles sat out the postseason for the first time in 17 years. During the offseason the Lakers made an acquisition that laid the foundation for yet another championship-caliber squad. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the league's premier big man, made it known that he would not return to Milwaukee after the season, demanding instead to be traded to either New York where he had grown up or Los Angeles where he had attended college.
He led the league in rebounding, blocked shots, and minutes played and finished second in scoring and field-goal percentage. But the big trade paid higher short-term dividends for Milwaukee than it did for Los Angeles-the Bucks went from last to first in the Midwest Division. The Lakers stumbled through a January and finished out of the playoffs with a record.
Jerry West replaced Bill Sharman as head coach during the offseason. It took another MVP season from Abdul-Jabbar to carry the team back to the top of the Pacific Division, as the Lakers finished with a league-best record.
They barely survived a tough seven-game series against the Warriors to open the postseason before being defeated by Portland in the Western Conference Finals. But the season got off to a horrendous start. Just two minutes into the campaign's first game Abdul-Jabbar punched Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation for an overly aggressive elbow.
Abdul-Jabbar broke his hand and was out for two months. Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich ran downcourt to break up the fight. Washington saw Tomjanovich running at him from behind and responded with a devastating punch that nearly ended Tomjanovich's career.
Washington was fined and suspended for 60 days. Tomjanovich missed the entire season and underwent a series of operations to reconstruct his jaw, eye, and cheek. The Lakers struggled through the first half of the season but rebounded to post a mark during the campaign's second half. A record earned them a matchup against Seattle in a best-of-three first-round playoff series. Despite the early ouster, the pieces were beginning to settle into place for the Lakers.
During the season the team got a sneak preview of the future with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jamaal Wilkes, and Norm Nixon all turning in fine performances. The club posted a record, then fell to the SuperSonics in the semifinal round of the playoffs. Buss brought in Jack McKinney as the new head coach. When the Lakers had let Gail Goodrich go to free agency prior to the season, they had no idea how significant Goodrich's departure would be for the team's future.
New Orleans did so by giving Los Angeles three draft picks, including its first-round pick in When the Jazz who moved to Utah in finished with the league's worst record in , the Lakers found themselves holding the No. The season was one of intense drama for the Lakers. The Lakers rallied to finish the season at , tops in the Pacific Division. The Lakers were talented and deep-Jamaal Wilkes, Jim Chones, and Abdul-Jabbar made for an intimidating front line, and the backcourt of Johnson and Nixon could stand up to any guard tandem in the country.
Los Angeles walked all over Phoenix and Seattle in the first two rounds of the playoffs, taking each series in five games.
The NBA Finals pitted the club against the Julius Erving-led Philadelphia 76ers, and the two teams split four close games to start the series. Abdul-Jabbar sprained his ankle in Game 5 but still scored 40 points to give the Lakers a win. Abdul-Jabbar was unable to play in Game 6, but Johnson stepped up to turn in one of the most remarkable performances in NBA Finals history.
Still just a year-old rookie, Johnson moved from guard to center and tallied 42 points, 15 rebounds, and 7 assists, single-handedly carrying the Lakers to a victory and the NBA Championship. The season was a major disappointment. The Lakers lost Magic Johnson for much of the season to a knee injury.
Behind another brilliant year from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar But Los Angeles was stunned by the Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs. Buss promoted Assistant Coach Pat Riley, a former Lakers backup point guard, to head coach on November 19, and the team won 17 of its next 20 games. The Lakers took the Pacific Division title and then embarked on one of the most impressive playoff journeys in NBA history.
They swept both Phoenix and the San Antonio Spurs with an average margin of victory of 11 points. Los Angeles then stretched its postseason winning streak to nine games by taking the first contest of the NBA Finals from the 76ers. Philadelphia came back to win Game 2, but the Lakers prevailed in the series, four games to two, to win their second title in three years.
The team's playoff record that year was The Lakers found themselves with an embarrassment of riches when, after winning the championship, they also ended up with the first overall pick in the NBA Draft. The situation was the result of a trade with Cleveland midway through the season, when the Lakers had sent Don Ford and a first-round pick eventually Chad Kinch to the Cavaliers for Butch Lee and their selection.
Fortuitously for the Lakers, Cleveland had finished with the league's worst record in , giving Los Angeles first crack at a talented crop of college players. It marked the first time in NBA history that a reigning champion held the No.
Worthy proved to be the perfect complement to both players, finishing on the break for Johnson and stepping out to the perimeter when Abdul-Jabbar needed room to maneuver inside. Worthy's rookie year ended in disappointment, however. He suffered a broken leg in the last week of the regular season and had to watch the postseason from the sidelines. But Los Angeles was no match for the Philadelphia 76ers, who had acquired Moses Malone before the season.
The Sixers won the series and the championship in four straight games. Los Angeles started at , but on December 2 Magic Johnson sustained a dislocated right index finger and missed a month of action. Although he led the league with The Lakers garnered their share of NBA records that year anyway.
Los Angeles took Game 1, then held a two-point lead in Game 2 with 15 seconds remaining when Gerald Henderson picked off a James Worthy pass and scored a layup to send the game into overtime. Boston prevailed, , and then the teams split the next four games. Boston triumphed, The Lakers cruised to a fourth straight Pacific Division title in despite losing Jamaal Wilkes for the season in mid-February because of torn knee ligaments. Los Angeles took the division by an NBA-record 20 games.
The club, at the height of its "Showtime" era, set two other NBA marks by posting a phenomenal. Facing Boston again in the championship round, the Lakers were humiliated in the first game, , a contest remembered as the "Memorial Day Massacre. The series marked the ninth time that Los Angeles and Boston had met in the NBA Finals but the first time that the Lakers had come away with the crown.
Jamaal Wilkes left the Lakers before the season. He played only 13 games with the Clippers before retiring. Los Angeles continued to rebuild, adding year-old Maurice Lucas, who gave the team some muscle, and rookie A. The Lakers also had power forward Kurt Rambis, a bespectacled, blue-collar fan favorite who had joined the team in Rambis spent seven seasons in a Los Angeles uniform.
The team got off to a blazing start, with records of , , and early in the season. Los Angeles won 62 games for the second year in a row and finished 22 games ahead of second-place Portland in the Pacific Division. Abdul-Jabbar was playing in an unprecedented 17th season, and he set new NBA career records for minutes and games played while averaging Johnson paced the league in assists The Celtics lost only one game en route to the Finals, but the Lakers failed to hold up their part of the bargain.
Led by twin towers Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson, the Rockets took a surprising series lead after four games. But the teams headed back to Los Angeles for Game 5, where the Lakers expected to regain the momentum. Instead, Sampson stunned the Lakers with a miraculous turnaround jump shot at the buzzer, breaking a tie to give Houston the series victory. The Rockets managed two victories against the Celtics in the Finals but lost the series. Once again the Lakers made a couple of key offseason moves, letting go of Maurice Lucas, moving A.
Green into the starting lineup, and picking up Mychal Thompson from San Antonio. The moves paid off. Abdul-Jabbar, now 39 years old, chipped in Los Angeles routed Boston in the first two games of the Finals, and the teams then split the next four contests, giving the Lakers their second championship in three seasons. It was a bold statement that served to motivate the team throughout the next season.
Los Angeles made no major moves before the campaign. The Lakers opened the season with an eight-game winning streak but lost six of their next nine games. They snapped out of the uncharacteristic slump with a victory in Boston on December 11 that ignited a game winning streak, the second longest in franchise history. And the chef, Frank Vogel , is putting the team in a defensive position to win every night. The Lakers currently have the No. LA ranked No. James has been the de facto point guard all season, and Davis is bouncing between any number of roles depending on the needs of the team on a given possession.
The lack of shooting is quite apparent: the Lakers are 28th in the three-point rate and 25th in three-point shooting percentage. Focusing on defense has long been the cheapest way to build.
If you have a superstar who is a top-flight defender — this is something Davis has always appeared capable of — you can typically build an elite defense around them without totally breaking the bank.
A 90th percentile defender is almost always substantially cheaper than a 90th percentile offensive player. That was the blueprint.
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