The Los Angeles Lakers are NBA Champions
The Los Angeles Lakers are NBA Champions.
Also, whoops! It looks like I forgot to update my website in 7 months! Silly ole me.
But the Lakers are the champions, which means that LeBron James is now a 4x champion and 4x NBA Finals MVP, Anthony Davis is an NBA Champion, and, most importantly, JR Smith has as many rings as Wilt Chamberlain.
I know it’s a point that has been belabored and that there isn’t much to say other than words of gratitude and awe, but everyone involved in this effort at every single level deserve endless praise. The idea that we would have a compelling, valid, and safe conclusion to this 2020 NBA season was beyond the realm of my imagination in March.
The NBA experienced ZERO positive coronavirus cases within the bubble. That is a mind-blowing accomplishment and one that I don’t think we will fully appreciate until this virus is truly beaten, whenever that may be. So thank you again to the players, officials, broadcasters, media members, Disney staff, bus drivers, caterers, and everyone else involved in delivering this incredible product to millions of people across the world.
I guess the first question on my mind is the same question I had when the bubble began –
If and when we get a champion, will it be a true championship, or will there be an asterisk?
And I think that after seeing the season play out, we can definitively say that the 2020 Lakers are a legitimate, bonafide, real NBA champion. It will be critical to note that the championship was achieved within the context of a global pandemic, a national cultural movement, and within the confines of fanless arenas. None of those things, in my mind, detract from this accomplishment.
To me, the way the playoffs played out had a huge bearing on the legitimacy of this championship. If it turned out that basketball in the bubble was vastly different than “normal” basketball, then yes, this postseason would have been suspect. And while it was certainly eerie at times to see momentum-swinging plays and dagger-threes performed to near silence, the basketball product that we were treated to was sufficiently comparable to what we would normally be accustomed to.
There will be some who try to discredit the Lakers by pointing out that they didn’t have to play the Bucks or the Clippers. But that kind of shit happens in every postseason. The Clippers blew a 3-1 lead over a superb Nuggets team and against a magnificent Miami Heat team, the Bucks again failed to butter the bread.
It happens.
The Clippers deserve to be criticized for choking. The Bucks deserve to be criticized for being outplayed by a 5-seed. How in the world do the Lakers deserve criticism for beating every team they were presented? If the Clippers were really the best team in the league, they wouldn’t have lost to the Nuggets. And if the Bucks were the best team in the East, they wouldn’t have lost to the Heat.
Additionally, I’ve seen the Lakers criticized for beating the 5th seeded Heat. It seems like those detractors are saying, “it wasn’t against the top teams, so it doesn’t count. The Bubble changed basketball enough that we got weird results, which the Heat exploited on route to an improbable Finals run. It doesn’t count if it didn’t come against the best. MiCkEy MoUsE RiNg”.
And they’re wrong.
I love Hakeem Olajuwon. I consider him one of the greatest players in basketball history, due in no small part to his two championships. His second championship, which came during the 1994-5 NBA season, is especially remarkable because in that postseason, the Rockets were a 6-seed.
They were nursing a championship hangover during the regular season, and then in the playoffs, Hakeem played out of his mind, the rest of the team got hot, they found themselves in the championship, they won it, and lived happily ever since. I’m perfectly comfortable calling the 1995 Rockets legitimate NBA champions.
Because they won the championship. And If the top-seeded Magic had beaten them, I find it hard to believe that we would be calling it a “fake ring”.
Are there reasons and subplots that contributed to their success? Without question. Just as there are with every single other champion in every single sport ever.
There are going to be reasons why they won. If there weren’t, they wouldn’t have won. Exploit what can be exploited. Take advantage of your advantages. It’s the definition of how to succeed. There were reasons why the Heat made the Finals. But they made the Finals. There were reasons why the Lakers won the championship. But they won the championship.
Any argument to the contrary, in an attempt to diminish the Lakers or a certain Laker player, is done entirely to be contrarian and to support a long-debunked myth.
Cry your salty tears. I will lick them from your face.
There’s also a pretty big question pertaining to that certain Laker player now.
What does it mean that LeBron James is a 4x NBA Champion and Finals MVP?
Oof. That is a big question. I’m pissed at myself for asking myself about it.
I guess the first thing I’ll do is make the caveat that I’m speaking subjectively. I’m only talking about what I’m thinking, and I’m not going to be “making the case” for anything.
The foremost implication in that question is whether this championship makes him effectively and unquestionably the greatest basketball player of all time.
For me…no. Not unquestionably, at least. I said in my Q&A video that I thought that Michael Jordan was the greatest player of all time. Now, I think it’s a tie. And if it’s not a tie and I had to pick, and LeBron James never played another minute of basketball, I would give the nod to Michael Jordan.
But remember, if you’re looking for someone who’s going to tell you explicitly who the GOAT HAS TO BE, I’m the wrong person. I think the subjective nature of historic player evaluation is a huge deal and also what makes talking about it so fun! Everyone’s answer is unique to them.
Michael’s basketball legacy is nearly unimpeachable to me. No black marks. No excuses needed. No questions asked. That’s a hard thing to top.
But LeBron James is ready to. He is the most valuable player in NBA history. He has won Finals MVP with three different franchises. He has transformed every team he has played on into championship contenders since he was 22 years old. He’s proven to be among the most durable athletes ever, and when it comes to basketball, he is the best all-around talent the sport has ever seen. In other words, he is the best basketball player of all time.
While I was making the case for LeBron, I knew that I needed to find an angle that addressed the disparity in championships between him and players like Bill Russell, Kareem, and obviously Michael Jordan. What I settled on was the argument that measuring a player purely based on the championship successes of their teams was an incomplete or incorrect metric.
I liked the case. I changed the criteria enough to argue that LeBron was the greatest of all time even before he had won his 4th championship. I didn’t necessarily agree with it, but it was an argument that I could appreciate.
It should shock no one to know that LeBron James will never be Michael Jordan. No one ever will be. Michael captured the attention of the sport and the world in a way cannot and will not ever be replicated for a host of reasons.
Where Michael - once he found his championship footing - sprinted through the finish line with six championships in eight years, LeBron has kept pace. He has plugged away and continued the arduous climb to a summit that some are convinced he will never reach. Year by year he gets closer.
I thought that his 2016 championship, coming back from down 3-1 against the 73-9 Warriors to deliver his hometown team, the one he had spurned just a few years prior, their first championship in five decades, would be effectively the end of LeBron’s case as the GOAT. And what a case it was, even then!
But he just led the league in assists at the age of 35, He is already the leader in multiple statistical categories like playoff points scored and playoff games played. He is the third all-time leading scorer in NBA history. Larry Bird retired after his 13th NBA season. LeBron James just won his 4th Finals MVP award in his 17th. He’s still playing.
And not only is he still playing, he isn’t even slowing down.
By the end of his career, LeBron James will redefine career statistics in a way that has not been seen since the days of Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Right now, right this second, I have Michael ahead by a hair. And not a very long one either. Maybe…one from LeBron’s hairline.
For the past two decades, the name Michael Jordan has been used in pop culture as a synonym for someone who is head and shoulders above the rest of their competition, contemporary or otherwise.
The fact that anyone - not just LeBron James - could ever share space at the top of the mountain next to Michael Jordan is, in the most traditional sense of the word, awesome.
And the idea that LeBron will continue at this trajectory can’t be overlooked. If he does hold this course and continues to be “LeBron” for another few years… he might not be sharing that space for long.