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Los Angeles Lakers: Ranking the best teams that didn’t win the title

By Jason Reed

Kobe Bryant (R) of the Los Angeles Lakers moves the ball before Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics during the Game One of the 2008 NBA Finals, in Boston, Massachusetts, June 5, 2008. Pierce shrugged off a right knee sprain to score 22 points, sparking the Boston Celtics past the Los Angeles Lakers 98-88 to open the National Basketball Association Finals. AFP PHOTO / GABRIEL BOUYS (Photo credit should read GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images)
Kobe Bryant (R) of the Los Angeles Lakers moves the ball before Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics during the Game One of the 2008 NBA Finals, in Boston, Massachusetts, June 5, 2008. Pierce shrugged off a right knee sprain to score 22 points, sparking the Boston Celtics past the Los Angeles Lakers 98-88 to open the National Basketball Association Finals. AFP PHOTO / GABRIEL BOUYS (Photo credit should read GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images) /
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(Photo credit should read TIZIANA SORGE/AFP via Getty Images) – Los Angeles Lakers
(Photo credit should read TIZIANA SORGE/AFP via Getty Images) – Los Angeles Lakers /

Best Los Angeles Lakers team to not win a championship: 4. 1990-1991 Lakers

  • Record: 58-24
  • Playoffs result: Defeated by Chicago Bulls (1-4) in NBA Finals
  • SRS: 6.73

The 1991 NBA Finals are important to basketball history as they served as the league turning the page from one historic era to another. This was the last time that either Magic Johnson or Larry Bird would appear in the NBA Finals and was the first of six championships for the greatest player of all-time, Michael Jordan.

It served as the end of the Showtime Lakers, a team that still had two Hall of Famers in Magic Johnson and James Worthy but was now without Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Cooper, two implemental players to the Lakers’ success in the 1980s.

This was also the last season that Magic would play before he announced that he had HIV. He wound up returning for the 1995-1996 season, but it just was not the same.

This Lakers team was the third seed in the Western Conference and was not supposed to get this far in the playoffs. They got a better matchup in the second round after the seventh-seeded Golden State Warriors upset the second-seeded San Antonio Spurs.

Their playoff experience then became crucial in the Western Conference Finals against the first-seeded Portland Trailblazers, defeating them in six games.

While that run was nice, this team will always be remembered as the first team that Michael Jordan defeated for his first championship.

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