3. James Worthy 1988 NBA Finals Game 7 Performance
Objectively one of the best NBA Finals performances of all time, people so often forget about James Worthy when thinking about Los Angeles Lakers’ greats.
With a team front loaded with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, it was easy to do so, but Worthy’s performance in game seven of the 1988 NBA Finals forever cemented his legacy in the annals of NBA lore.
Worthy finished with 36 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists in a narrow Lakers 108-105 victory over the Detroit Pistons, finally giving them the long sought after back-to-back championship.
"Less well-known is that this game may be the greatest outlier in Finals history. In the entirety of the 1987-88 season, Worthy didn’t have a single game with more than 12 rebounds. He also had only one game with more than 32 points and only one with double-digit assists. The odds of doing any one of these things against a team like the Pistons were small … but the chances of all three? Infinitesimal. In fact, it was the only triple-double of his 1,069-game career (including playoffs)"
In the only triple-double of his entire career, “Big Game James” could not have come through at a better time, as Worthy was given NBA Finals MVP honors and remains one of the 13 players with Finals triple-doubles.
Next: Magic Starts at Center, Game 6 of the 1980 NBA Finals