Today in Lakers History: Shaq and Kobe Bryant Clinch First Title
It was 16 years ago to date that the Los Angeles Lakers claimed their first NBA championship in 12 seasons, a lifetime for the team’s devout yet insatiable fan base
June 19, 2000.
That date saw the Los Angeles Lakers earn a 116-111 Game 6 victory over the Indiana Pacers. With that, they secured the first title for Southern California since the Showtime Lakers hoisted their last Larry O’Brien trophy in 1988.
The 2000 Lakers finished the regular season with the NBA’s best record, as league MVP Shaquille O’Neal, aided by Kobe Bryant and a reliable supporting cast, blitzed through the Western Conference en route to a 67-15 record and home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. That advantage would be prove critical, as the team was pushed to elimination twice before hosting the Pacers in the NBA Finals.
After two inspired outings at home, the team left Los Angeles up 2-0 in the series, but down Bryant, who suffered an ankle injury during the second Lakers victory. Although Kobe returned to provide some late-game heroics in Game 4, losses in Games 3 and 5 put the onus on the Purple and Gold to deliver in Game 6.
Behind Shaq’s 41 points, the team did just that—raising the first of three consecutive banners that kickstarted yet another chapter of success.
Yet, it was a long and winding return to relevance for this organization, a franchise that cycled through six head coaches between Pat Riley’s departure in 1990 and the arrival of Phil Jackson in the summer of 1999.
Riley’s departure came just one season after the retirement of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a year before Magic Johnson’s HIV revelation, a three-year span that signaled the official end of a Showtime Lakers team that won five titles in nine seasons.
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By 1992, the team was nearly unrecognizable—only James Worthy and Byron Scott remained from the latest championship roster and both were on their last legs. A year later, the team fired second-year coach Randy Pfund and brought back Magic to finish out the season as coach.
The team lost its final 10 games and failed to reach the playoffs.
Fortunes changed after 1994 as young guards Nick Van Exel and Eddie Jones thrived under the leadership of Del Harris. The team quickly improved and fought deep into the Western Conference playoffs for four consecutive years, but even the arrival of Bryant and O’Neal in 1996 couldn’t get the Lake Show back atop the West and into the NBA Finals.
That all changed when General Manager Jerry West fired Harris in 1999 before luring the esteemed Phil Jackson from Chicago that summer. The rest, as they say, is history.
But now, as we look back on this important date in Lakers lore, we remind ourselves that even the most successful of franchises must sometimes experience some darkness before the light. And while the team’s feebler years in the early 1990s didn’t nearly approach the futility of these last two Lakers seasons, what West and Mitch Kupchak were able to accomplish to restore the team to championship form cannot be overlooked.
The turbulent offseason of 1994 marked the half-way point between title runs, six years removed from Magic and Kareem’s final title in 1988 and six years away from the first championship under the Zen-Master.
Fittingly enough, this prior season (the lowest point in Lakers’ regular season history) marks exactly six year since the franchise’s last title, a perfect time flip the trajectory of this historical parabola and begin our march back to championship relevance.
With Luke Walton leaving the transcendent Golden State Warriors to lead the Lakers next season as the new head coach, it’s already beginning to feeling like the pivot-point is set. A fresh, (potentially) championship-caliber coach combined with a ton of cap space, a second-overall pick, and a bevy of promising young talent is more than enough for a compelling narrative
While the script is still being written, the Purple and Gold are amassing the personnel needed to eventually turn it into a true Hollywood production. This championship anniversary serves as a reminder that in the world of basketball, some chapters of success take longer to develop than others.
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Luckily for the Lakers, they’ve got a lot of precedent to work with. And with the NBA Draft and free agency fast approaching, it’s time they get cracking.