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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 by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images) – Los Angeles Lakers
(Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images) – Los Angeles Lakers /

Best Los Angeles Lakers team to not win a championship: 2. 1972-1973 Los Angeles Lakers

  • Record: 60-22
  • Playoffs result: Defeated by New York Knicks (1-4) in NBA Finals
  • SRS: 8.16

Jerry West appeared in nine NBA Finals in his 14-year NBA career. He wound up winning just one of those nine appearances with the 1971-1972 Lakers, who defeated the New York Knicks. One year later, the Knicks got their revenge in what would be West’s last NBA Finals appearance.

The 1972-1973 Lakers actually rank fairly high in the all-time franchise rank in SRS. They have the highest SRS of any team on this list and have the fifth-best SRS in franchise history.

What made this team so special, outside of West, was that this was right in the middle of Gail Goodrich‘s prime. Goodrich emerged as a top-tier player in the early 1970s, with his best years coming in the three seasons from 1971-1974.

Goodrich led the team in scoring with 23.9 points per game to go along with 4.4 assists and 3.5 rebounds.

It also helps that the team had West and Wilt Chamberlain, who finished sixth and fourth in MVP voting that season, respectively.

However, without Elgin Baylor and with West and Chamberlain both past their primes, this team was unable to repeat as NBA Champions and should go down as the second-best non-title winning team in Lakers history, as the talent on the number one team is impossible to ignore.

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