The Book of Basketball (111 page)

5. THE ’01 LAKERS

Regular season (56–26): 31–10 at home … 3.4 SD (100.6–97.2) … longest winning streak: 8

Playoffs (15–1): 12.8 SD (103.4–90.6) … 46.7% FG, 38.6% 3FG, 67.6% FT, 15.0 stocks … 9 double-digit wins … only loss: overtime (Game 1, Philly) … following season: won title (beat Nets in 4)

Cast and crew: Shaq (super-duper star), Kobe (superstar), Robert Horry, Derek Fisher, Rick Fox, Brian Shaw, Tyronn Lue, Ron Harper, Horace Grant (role players), Phil Jackson (coach)

An upside pick that defies two ground rules established just pages earlier. Sue me. The Lakers had their regular season derailed by the Disease of More (a season-threatening case), bad luck with injuries (Shaq and Kobe missed 23 games combined) and a so-predictable-that-nobody-even-bothered-to-take-credit-for-predicting-it alpha dog battle as Kobe delved into petulant ballhog territory for the first time.
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With everyone healthy by March, Jackson mentally coerced/brainwashed Kobe back into the fold
and the Lakers unleashed an all-time Keyser Söze run in April, winning 23 of their last 24 and coming within an OT loss in the Finals of sweeping the entire NBA playoffs.
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So if we’re trying to find the most invincible team of all time, and there were legitimate reasons for why the Lakers took a few months to get going … I mean, would
you
have wanted to play these guys that spring? We haven’t seen anything approaching Shaqobe in the 2001 Playoffs;
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it’s the only time in NBA history that two top-twenty Pyramid guys joined forces as an inside/outside combo with both either approaching their primes or enjoying their primes. Check out Shaqobe’s regular season and playoff numbers.

Good God! Two 42 Clubbers on the same title team? That’s the one and only time it’s ever happened. Just for shits and giggles, let’s compare their combined 42 Club average to every other memorable one-two championship punch since Chamberlain and Greer combined for a jaw-dropping 49.3 in the ’67 Playoffs. Nobody topped 37.5 other than these ten combinations:

A good example of how ridiculous Shaqobe’s ’01 postseason was: in the second round, you might remember them sweeping a quality Kings team. They prevailed by three in Game 1, with Shaq notching 44 points (17 for 32 FG), 21 rebounds and 7 blocks. They won Game 2 by six, with Shaq springing for a 43–20–3. In Sacramento for Game 3, Kobe dropped 36 and Shaq added a quiet 21–18 in a twenty-two-point drubbing. They finished the sweep with a six-point win as Kobe played the best all-around game of his career: 48 points, 16 rebounds, 15-for-29 from the field and 17-for-19 from the line with no less than Doug Christie (one first-team All-Defense and three second teams from 2001–4) guarding him. Again, this was a
really
good Kings team with the best crowd in the league … and the Lakers blew them out of their own building like Fartman. In fact, the ’01 Lakers swept a 50-win Blazers team (that nearly beat them the previous spring), a 55-win Kings team (that almost beat them 12 months later), and a 58-win Spurs team (that won three titles in the next six years),
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then came within an overtime loss of sweeping the 56-win Sixers. The ’01 Lakers were the only NBA team to beat four straight 50-win playoff teams to win a championship. How does that 15–1 sound now?

One more thing: If you were creating the perfect Shaqobe team, you’d surround them with elite role players like Horry, Fox, Fisher, Shaw and Grant; you’d give them Phil Jackson for the Zen/harmony stuff; you’d definitely want 2000 or 2001 Shaq; and you’d want 2001 Kobe (only twenty-two with a ring and valuable playoff experience, back when his ego hadn’t erupted yet and he was closer to Young Pippen than Young MJ). The 2001 Kobe might have been the greatest second banana of all time; teaming him with a twenty-eight-year-old Shaq was almost criminal. Matching them up against the ’96 Bulls:

Center: Shaq vs. Longley
Forwards: Horry + Harper vs. Rodman + Pippen
Guards: Kobe + Fisher vs. Jordan + Harper
Bench: Grant, Lue, Shaw + Fox vs. Kukoc, Kerr, Wennington + Buechler
Coach: Jackson vs. Jackson

Would you take the ’01 Lakers in that series? I feel like I would—they were a better version of the ’95 Magic team that topped the Bulls. But what about the ’86 Celtics?

Center: Shaq vs. Parish
Forwards: Horry + Harper vs. Bird + McHale
Guards: Kobe + Fisher vs. Johnson + Ainge
Bench: Grant, Lue, Shaw + Fox vs. Walton, Wedman, Sichting + Kite
Coach: Jackson vs. KC Jones
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Don’t you think the ’86 Celtics swallow them up? They’d have two Hall of Fame centers to throw at Shaq, a Hall of Fame defensive guard to throw at Kobe, and a scoring mismatch with Bird/McHale against the Guy Who’s Not Robert Horry. The ’86 Celtics were vulnerable against speedy point guards and athletic small forwards and the ’01 Lakers didn’t have anyone fitting either of those categories. Either way, they were the best team of the last twelve years and in the top five of all time regardless of how late they
got going. Shit, will we ever see two top-twenty Pyramid guys playing on the same team in their primes again in our lifetimes?

(Insert sound of every Knicks fan screaming, “Yes! Starting in 2011! We will see this again! I don’t know the combination of guys, but we will see this again!
Yessssssss!”)

4: THE ’89 DETROIT PISTONS

Regular season (63–19) … 37–4 at home … 5.8 PD (106.6–100.8) … 49.4% FG, 44.7 defensive FG … 16–12 vs. 50-win teams

Playoffs (15–2): 8–1 at home
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… 6 double-digit wins … 9.5 PD (100.6–92.9) … closeout margins: 15, 2, 9, + 8 (all on road) … following season: won title (beat Portland in 5)

Cast and crew: Isiah (superstar); Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman (wingmen); Vinnie Johnson (sixth man); Bill Laimbeer, John Salley, James Edwards, Rick Mahorn, Mark Aguirre (supporting cast); Chuck Daly (coach)

Not technically a Level One team since they were hardened by crushing losses in ’87 (Boston) and ’88 (Lakers). No NBA champ had more versatility and toughness: they were physical as hell; they could execute a fast break or half-court offense equally well; they played defense as well as anyone with the exception of the ’08 Celtics and the
’96
–’
97
Bulls; they controlled the boards; they could exploit any mismatch; and they always seemed to have two different hot players going offensively. Fans unfairly discounted Isiah’s Pistons because they couldn’t beat Boston or the Lakers
at their peaks—even though they defeated Jordan’s Bulls twice and won back-to-back titles—and because they lacked a dominant center or super-duper star, which confused everyone who didn’t follow basketball obsessively. I hated these bastards but grew to respect their hard-nosed swagger; they never allowed layups or dunks, never gave an inch, never stopped fighting and didn’t care if they maimed you as long as they won. Their relentless competitiveness brought out the worst in opponents; I always found it fascinating that, for a team that ended up in so many fights, the Pistons never threw the first punch or had the most enraged guy in the brawl. And if you remember, the ’87 Celtics and ’88 Lakers spent so much energy fending them off that they were never the same afterward.

So much of what the Pistons accomplished was based on intimidation and the understanding that they’d do whatever it took to win, even if it meant intentionally stepping on McHale’s broken foot (which Mahorn did repeatedly in ’87) or hammering Jordan and Pippen during their forays to the basket. For them, the mental game was bigger than anything. If you were frustrated by their elbows and shoves, if you were afraid of getting clocked every time you drove to the basket, if you were obsessing over punching Laimbeer instead of just thinking about ways to beat him … then they had you. That’s what they wanted. You could say they figured out a loophole in the system, and after Pat Riley exploited that loophole even further with his bullying Knicks teams, the NBA finally stepped in and instituted taunting/fighting penalties and a system for flagrant fouls.
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If we’re judging the ’89 Pistons against other landmark teams, the question remains: would they have succeeded to that degree with 2009 rules in place? Probably not. But they were so intelligent/competitive/versatile/bloodthirsty that those particular qualities translate to any era.

One bummer for these guys: 1989–90 was a transition period with the Bird Era slowing down, the Kareem Era ending, the Jordan Era not totally rolling yet, the Stockton-Malone Era stalling, the Hakeem era floundering, the Ewing/Robinson/Barkley peaks still a few years away, and only the
Bulls and Blazers rounding into legitimate contenders. The Pistons filled a void of sorts and became the Larry Holmes of NBA champs: unliked, resented and ultimately dismissed. We wanted them to go away and eventually, like Holmes, they did. But like Holmes, when you watch those old tapes you end up thinking, “Man, those guys were
really
good.”
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3: THE ’87 L.A. LAKERS

Regular season (65–17): peak of 65–15 … 37–4 at home … 9.3 SD (117.8–108.5) … 12–6 vs. 50-win teams … 51.6 FG%, 78.9% FT … winning streaks: 11 + 10

Playoffs (15–3): 10–0 at home … 11.4 SD (120.6–109.2) … 10 double-digit wins … 52.2% FG, 78.5% FT, 36.1% 3FG, 28.2 APG, 14.4 stocks … closeout game margins of 37, 12, 31, + 13 … following season: won title (beat Detroit in 7)

Cast and crew: Magic (super-duper star); Kareem + Worthy (super wingmen); Michael Cooper (sixth man); Byron Scott, A. C. Green, Mychal Thompson, Kurt Rambis (supporting cast); Pat Riley (coach)

How do we know this was Magic’s best Lakers team? He said so himself after the Finals: “There’s no question this is the best team I’ve played on. It’s fast, it can shoot and rebound, it has inside people, it has everything. I’ve never played on a team that had everything before.”
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He left out the biggest reason: Magic jumped a level and cruised to his first MVP, submitting his best statistical year (regular season: 24–6–12; playoffs: 22–8–12, 53% FG and an impossible 78–13 assist/turnover ratio in the Finals) and gently yanking control from a declining Kareem. Their humiliating
Rockets defeat qualified them for Level Three status; it also helped that they got faster instead of bigger, dumping Maurice Lucas and Mitch Kupchak, handing their minutes to Green and Rambis and routinely going smallball with Magic-Scott-Coop-Worthy-Kareem. They mastered the art of juggling transition and half-court offense, running on every opportunity and waiting for Kareem to drag his ass up the court otherwise. From there, they had three devastating options: Kareem posting up, Magic posting up (a new wrinkle) or Worthy facing up and beating slower forwards off the dribble. And of their two glaring weaknesses (defending quick point guards or dominant low-post scorers), one was miraculously solved when San Antonio gift-wrapped Mychal Thompson and FedExed him to them for their stretch run.

The Thompson trade would have sparked an Internet riot if it happened today (take how everyone reacted to the Pau Gasol hijacking, then square it): the Spurs were 18–31 and considering a full-fledged tank job with the David Robinson sweepstakes looming, unwilling to pay $1.4 million combined for Thompson and a decomposing Artis Gilmore. Lakers GM Jerry West barraged them with Thompson offers for a solid month, finally landing him for a pu-pu platter deluxe offer of Frank Brickowski, Petur Gudmundsson, a 1987 first-round pick (destined to be last) and cash. Everyone went crazy, and rightly so: Thompson was a former number one overall pick and one of the league’s better low-post defenders.
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Within a week of the trade, Thompson played crunch time in a CBS game against Philly as everyone collectively said, “My God, what the hell just happened?” Thompson earned 22 minutes per game in the playoffs, rested Kareem for chunks of time, gave McHale fits and made the most underrated play of the Finals: when he jumped over Parish and McHale in Game 4 (foul! foul!) and caused Kareem’s pivotal free throw to bounce off their hands, setting the stage for Magic’s soul-wrenching baby hook.
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The
Lakers also benefitted from Lenny Bias’ sudden death, a rash of Boston injuries, Houston’s untimely demise and the up-and-coming Mavericks (55 wins, 3–2 against the Lakers) unexpectedly choking in the first round one against Seattle.
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Since the playoffs expanded to sixteen teams in 1977, no Finals team ever played three worse conference opponents than the ’87 Lakers: in this case, the 37-win Nuggets (round 1), 42-win Warriors (round 2) and 39-win Sonics (round 3). Meanwhile, the banged-up Celtics faced MJ’s 40-win Bulls and endured seven-game slugfests against a veteran 50-win Bucks team and the 52-win Pistons. Gee, who do you think was fresher for the Finals?