“Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant’s Lakers are the last professional sports team to 3-peat”: ESPN notices something remarkable as Tampa Bay Lightning lost the Stanley Cup

The increasing competition in the sports world has almost led to the end of dynasties which we saw quite often until the turn of the century. Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant’s Lakers were the last of that era.

The current generation of NBA fans knows of long-term dominance on the court because the Golden State Warriors made it to the NBA Finals in six out of the last eight seasons.

With their latest triumph, Stephen Curry and Co. won the championship four times in that period. But the way dominance is displayed by winning back-to-back chips cannot be compared to anything else, not even an 8-straight Finals appearance (not a dig at LeBron James).

In the last 20 years, there have been teams that can be called dynasties like the Warriors who won three in four years between 2015-18 and before them the San Antonio Spurs who won 3-chips in 5 years between 2003 and 2007.

There was the Miami Heat of 2010-14 that made it to 4 straight Finals and the Lakers of 2007-10 who appeared in 3 of those, but both could only win two (both repeats). Had they three-peated like the 2000-02 Lakers, we might also be remembering them as the most dominant teams in sports history.

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The 2000-02 Lakers were the last franchise in professional sports to 3-peat

With the last two NHL seasons’ champions, Tampa Bay Lightning losing the 2022 Stanley Cup 2-4 to the Colorado Avalanche, no franchise in the professional sports has won 3-straight biggest trophies of their sport in the last 20 years.

Just a second! That is not right. Let me correct myself. We meant the professional sports in the United States, as Cristiano Ronaldo’s Real Madrid did win the Champions League in 3-straight years from 2016 to 18. But I guess we were correct with “3-peat” being an American term it would have stuck for just American Sports anyways.

Coming back to basketball, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant-led Purple and Golds were the last teams to three-peat in 2002. They finally did get the best result they could after getting The Mamba in the Draft and Shaquille O’Neal in free agency in the same year (1996).

That surely was the last of what true dominance looked like in American Sports history after the New York Yankees (MLB) and Houston Comets (WNBA) of the late 90s, Chicago Bulls of the 90s, New York Islanders (NHL) of the 80s, Oakland As (MLB) and Montreal Canadiens (NHL) of the 70s and the Boston Celtics of the 60s.

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