Apologies to the purists, but this Lakers team has to be considered among the all-time greats.
“This puts us up there,” Shaquille O’Neal said of Los Angeles’ sweep of the New Jersey Nets in the NBA Finals. “We’ve been through a lot of hard times, more good times than hard times. But I think it [puts] us up there with all the great teams.”
Those would include the 1967 Philadelphia 76ers, who won 68 games with Wilt Chamberlain; the 1986 Boston Celtics, with Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish; and the 1980s Lakers of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy. Pat Riley, their coach, picks the 1987 team as the best.
Also on that list would have to be the 1972 Lakers, who had a 33-game winning streak before they beat a good Bulls team, Abdul-Jabbar’s Bucks and the Knicks in the playoffs. The 1960s Celtics had Bill Russell, Bob Cousy and enough other Hall of Famers to create their own wing, and Russell said this week the 1964-65 team was the best ever. Isiah Thomas counters that his Detroit Pistons of 1989 and 1990 would have had too much defense for this Lakers team.
And any list would have to include the 1970s Knicks, the 1996 Bulls, who won a record 72 games, and the 1991 Bulls, whom I believe were the best of the six Chicago champions.
Is this Lakers team, having won three championships in Phil Jackson’s first three years as coach, a dynasty?
“You’d have to win it again,” Jackson said, noting that his Bulls accomplished the rare three-peat twice. “But it’s very confident and comfortable in the playoffs and comfortable playing in pressure situations. I think people recognize it as a great team.”
They must, even though the competition in the last two Finals, the 76ers and Nets, has been weak. But the Lakers don’t select their opponents. They beat them. A team still has to win the games.
And this Lakers team has done so like no other.
Los Angeles’ two-year playoff run of 30-5 is unprecedented. No team has stormed through the playoffs like these Lakers, going 15-1 last season and dominating every foe this season except the Sacramento Kings in the Western Conference finals.
Jackson warned his team that this year would not be easy, and it had trouble similar to that of the Bulls’ second run when they endured a seventh game in the conference finals against the Indiana Pacers. But that was at home and the Lakers won a seventh game in Sacramento. The Bulls’ most dominant team?
That would be the 1991 group that rolled through the playoffs 15-2, swept the defending champion Detroit Pistons and then won four straight from Magic Johnson’s Lakers after dropping Game 1.
“With Michael [Jordan] and Scottie Pippen, we didn’t let you get into your offense,” said Jim Cleamons, an assistant to Jackson with both the Lakers and Bulls. “They took away your first and second option. They made you look for your third and fourth. They went after teams and were disruptive. This team is not quite like that.”
Would that Bulls team beat this Lakers team? Undoubtedly.
“Shaq still has to get the ball from somebody,” Cleamons said. “With Michael and Scottie out there, it’s going to be tough.”
But if he does get it . . .
“When you get out there, you realize just how big and good Shaquille O’Neal is,” Nets guard Lucious Harris said. “You say, `This is one great team.'”
This Lakers team is not as good as last year’s, missing depth with Horace Grant, Ty Lue and Ron Harper gone. I would favor the 1991 Bulls over either, but several of the other Bulls champions would have problems with these Lakers.
O’Neal is being regarded as the equal of Chamberlain, and Kobe Bryant is close to being considered Jordan-like. And how good would a team be with Chamberlain and Jordan?
