It’s often said that underdogs have nothing to lose, and that all the pressure is on the favorites to win. That might be vary from game to game, but it’s definitely true when it comes to winning championships. Certain teams just expect to win, to the point that anything short of a ring is classified as a failure.
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The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the most successful franchises in sports history. They’ve won 17 NBA titles, just one behind the Celtics for the NBA record. In the 1980s, those two franchises, led by Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and a bevy of other future Hall-of-Famers, waged a decade-long war for NBA supremacy, and being the last one standing at the end of the season was all that mattered.
On the latest episode of Byron Scott’s Fast Break, former Lakers trainer Gary Vitti was on to reminisce about those teams. Both Scott and he told stories that perfectly illustrated the championship mindset those Showtime Lakers had.
Scott told his first. “We didn’t celebrate that s***,” he said of winning the Western Conference Finals. He mentioned Sam Perkins, whom the team had acquired from the lowly Mavericks, exulting in the Lakers WCF win in 1991. “Sam came in after we won at the Forum to get to the Finals, and he’s jumping up and down in the locker room, and we’re looking at him like, ‘What the f*** you doing?'”
Scott said that Perkins and Larry Drew had never experienced that kind of success before, but Scott and Magic and the rest of the team had won so much that they didn’t see the big deal in simply making it to the Finals, because that’s what the Lakers were supposed to do. They even apologized the next day for raining on the new guys’ parade, because they realized how much it meant to them since it was their first time.
Vitti then stepped in and told a great story from years earlier about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar that illustrated the same point. “We win the Western Conference in ’85,” he said, “and they gave a silver trophy, it was like a wooden base with a silver ball on it. Nice-a** trophy, if you don’t have another trophy,” he quipped.
“And so they present it to Kareem after the game on the floor,” he continued. “It was my first [win], I was with the Jazz, I mean they sucked, OK? They didn’t even make the playoffs, let alone win the Western Conference Finals.”
Vitti was so excited when they got back to the locker room since this was his first time being part of a winner. That excitement quickly turned to shock. “Kareem walks in with this silver ball trophy, and walks over to the laundry hamper and dumps it in,” he said.
Maybe that’s part of what made all those Lakers teams great, because they weren’t satisfied with just getting to the Finals. It was championship or bust, all the time.
This year’s Lakers, led by Luka Doncic, are playing really well. They’re 12-4, tied for the second-best record in the West behind the defending champs, the Oklahoma City Thunder. OKC has been rolling through everyone though, and their 17-1 record is proof that they’re going to be extremely difficult to beat.
It’s going to take an all-time effort from Doncic, the recently returned LeBron James, and the rest of JJ Redick’s team to get through the West and topple the Thunder. Even if they do, it won’t be time to celebrate unless they can close the deal in the Finals. That’s the Laker way.
