National Post (National Edition)
Lakers' return to top in NBA wasn't a given
Team seemed on edge of calamity all season
In a year as messed up as 2020, it was almost fitting that the Los Angeles Lakers would be crowned champions.
From the very beginning of the season — which began in earnest back in July 2019 — the Lakers were teetering on the edge of calamity seemingly all year long.
The team cleared cap space to make room for a max contract player, only to see Kawhi Leonard spurn their offer in favour of the rival Los Angeles Clippers.
Without a max player of their liking still out there, general manager Rob Pelinka and the Lakers braintrust pivoted and went with an experienced crop of signings that included DeMarcus Cousins, Danny Green, Avery Bradley, Jared Dudley, Troy Daniels and Quinn Cook. They also re-signed the likes of Rajon Rondo, JaVale McGee and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
When Cousins was lost for the season a month later when he tore his ACL in training, the Lakers brought back Dwight Howard to fill that role.
Having lost out on Leonard, though, Pelinka's job was being called for before the Lakers played a game and this was with LeBron James and Anthony Davis already in the fold.
Owner Jeanie Buss stood firm — she had already lost Magic Johnson from the front office on her watch — and trusted the pieces were in place to bring a championship back to Los Angeles for the first time since 2010.
The adversity, though, didn't even begin there. Even the head coaching search months earlier that resulted in Frank Vogel taking over from Luke Walton was considered a failure, given the Lakers' inability to lure Monty Williams to the Staples Center. Williams and Ty Lue were the club's two first choices, but Williams opted for Phoenix while Lue couldn't get the five-year deal he coveted and walked away from the table.
That left Vogel. All he did was get a hodge-podge group of Lakers, behind two stalwart defensive superstars, to play the kind of team defence that ultimately was the difference in their championship series win over Miami.
When the outcome was still in question, Sunday's Game 6 victory was as near defensive perfection by the Lakers as any team has played in years.
Back in January, the team was again knocked sideways when franchise legend Kobe Bryant along with his daughter, Gianna, and seven other passengers died in a helicopter crash.
Bryant was early into his retirement from the game, but was still and will forever be closely associated with the Lakers franchise.
The hits kept coming as the worldwide pandemic put the Lakers and all of the NBA out of action for 4½ months. Upon the return to the court, there was plenty of talk about the safety of such a return. It was enough to see defence-first guard Bradley opt out of the restart. There was talk that Howard might do the same in order to focus on the fight for racial equality which was simmering in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis. Howard would eventually opt to join the Lakers in Orlando on the Disney campus.
Then the Lakers lost point guard Rondo for six weeks when he fractured his right thumb in a pre-seeding games practice.
The two constants through it all were James and Davis and in the end, it was enough to overcome all the obstacles thrown at them and still win a championship.
James, as the senior member of that duo and the man with three championships and nine Finals appearances on his resume before Sunday, was the anchor that held them through the toughest of times.
While he stopped short of saying this was the most difficult of the championships he has been a part of, he did agree that the circumstances — playing in a bubble in the midst of a pandemic with social unrest rampant everywhere outside the bubble — around it made it that much tougher than the others.
“Our ball club got here July 9,” James began. “It's October what — I don't even know, October 11 now. So this was very challenging and difficult. It played
IT PLAYED WITH YOUR MIND. IT PLAYED WITH YOUR BODY.
with your mind. It played with your body. You're away from some of the things that you're so accustomed to make you be the professional that you are. So this is right up there.
“I heard some rumblings from people that are not in the bubble, oh, you don't have to travel, whatever. People just doubting what goes on in here. This is right up there with one of the greatest accomplishments I've had.”
And through all the ups and downs within the season and leading up to it, James remained convinced this was the year the Lakers would do it.
“What gave me faith is that Rob Pelinka told me he would do whatever it takes to make sure that we would become a winning franchise once again,” James said. “Obviously, championships are not promised, and I don't expect that. But he said he would do whatever it takes to make this franchise, whatever personnel changes he needs to make, any part of our organization, he would do it, because he wanted to win just as much.”
Not everything, in fact not much at all, went according to script for these Lakers this season, but when that final horn blew in Game 6, James and the Lakers' spot atop the NBA ranks was restored.