Over a span of several decades, the Los Angeles Lakers became the gold standard of basketball by winning championship after championship. They did so with a formula that consisted of transcendent leaders, star players, selfless supporting contributors and a healthy team concept.
The Lakers are one of very few teams in sports that have had multiple dynasties. They had one in their embryonic years in Minneapolis, one during the Showtime era of the 1980s and yet another one in the first decade of the 21st century. As such, not every one of their championship teams can be put on a top 10 list
We continue our ranking of the 10 greatest Lakers teams to win it all with one that turned a memorable team into one that established a dynasty.
Going For Bigger and Better Things
In 2000, the Lakers won their first NBA championship in a dozen years behind the talents of Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and head coach Phil Jackson. Given the relative youth of their dynamic duo, they were expected to add more rings in the years to come.
O’Neal has been widely criticized in the late 1990s for never coming close to winning it all. In five of his six previous postseason appearances, his teams had gotten swept, and it led to plenty of people seeing him as a loser who lacked commitment.
He decided to take it easy during the summer of 2000 and bask in the glow of finally being a world champion. Bryant, on the other hand, saw the 2000 title as a mere stepping stone to more, and he worked like a madman in order to become an even greater player.
The results became apparent as the 2000-01 season started. O’Neal’s offensive numbers were way down in the first two months of the season, and his free throw accuracy, which had always been a problem, fell under 40%, which was flat-out embarrassing.
Meanwhile, Bryant came out with a vengeance. He had been great the previous season, but he was hell-bent on becoming the game’s best player, or at least its best non-big man.
He averaged 27.8 points a game in November and was very aggressive offensively. After struggling initially to maintain efficiency, he found it in December while putting up several monster performances and averaging 32.3 points per contest that month.
But O’Neal had a problem because he wasn’t getting the ball as much. He started blaming Bryant’s quest for self-actualization for the team’s disappointing record (23-10 through Jan. 3), and fans and the media fell for it. Very quickly, article after article came out, most of which were slanderous, accusing Bryant of being selfish, arrogant and self-indulgent.
As the winter progressed, L.A. struggled to generate any type of momentum, and it looked like the team would become one of the many that failed to win back-to-back titles.
Things Fall Into Place
After a dismal April 1 loss to the New York Knicks in which they scored just 78 points, the Lakers had a 48-26 record, and it simply looked like it wasn’t their year.
They then took off on a four-game road trip with their schedule winding down as Bryant remained home to recover from an ankle injury that had been hindering him for several weeks. O’Neal averaged 35.8 points a game, and he was starting to defend and rebound with the intensity he consistently displayed the previous season.
Los Angeles won all four of those contests, and it won each of its four remaining games at home right afterward to give it an eight-game winning streak to end the regular season. Bryant returned for those final four home games, and while he put up sizable scoring numbers, he was looking to get his teammates involved more than he had that season.
Yet despite a 56-26 record and second-place finish in the Western Conference, the Lakers seemed to face a gauntlet in the playoffs. They would have to defeat three teams that won at least 50 games just to return to the NBA Finals. One of those teams was the San Antonio Spurs, who they had avoided during the 2000 postseason after Tim Duncan got hurt. Duncan was now healthy, and the Spurs held the best regular season record in the league.
Instead, the Purple and Gold would be a gauntlet themselves that spring and summer.
They swept the Portland Trail Blazers, the same team that almost knocked them out in Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals, in the first round. They then swept an emerging and dangerous Sacramento Kings squad in the second round, as Bryant piled on 48 points and 16 rebounds in Game 4.
Los Angeles then took on the Spurs in a Western Conference Finals matchup that was expected to be a battle royale. But Bryant remained in volcano mode, going for 45 points in an easy Game 1 win. That was when O’Neal memorably called Bryant “his idol” and said the guard was the best player in the game.
Yet another sweep took place, with the team winning Game 3 and Game 4 by a combined 68 points. Los Angeles simply seemed unbeatable.
The Philadelphia 76ers, its opponent in the NBA Finals, was able to steal Game 1 at Staples Center. But they then lost the next four games, giving the Lakers back-to-back world championships and a then-record 15-1 postseason record.
O’Neal won his second straight finals MVP by averaging 33.0 points, 15.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 3.4 blocks a game versus the Sixers while being guarded by Dikembe Mutombo, who was that season’s Defensive Player of the Year.
It was a storybook ending for the franchise that is always associated with Hollywood. But in the end, there wasn’t much that was Hollywood-like about the Lakers. They were now harmonious, focused and hard-working, and it seemed nothing would stop them in the foreseeable future.
