Champions 2020

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The Creation of the 2020 NBA Championship Ring

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It will start soon enough. If LeBron James looks a pinky toe slow, if
                the Lakers drop a couple of these 2020-21 games coming Ferrari-fast on the heels of the Lakers’ 2019-20
                title, if he doesn’t have enough red in his Christmas Day game sneakers, the critics will not wait to
                pounce.

Don’t take the bait. Don’t be sucked in by the negativity.

James has earned the benefit of every doubt.

As eye-opening an experience as it has been for Anthony Davis to team up with James and learn the ways
                of such a consistent performer and regular winner, consider one more way it has been a brow-raising
                revelation for Davis:
                “I know he gets criticized,” Davis said of James, “more than any basketball player ever.”

Such is the nature of climbing in life. A lot of people look up to you. Some put you on a pedestal.

Others delight in swinging an axe at that pedestal’s legs.

What is beyond debate is that James spends his days and years accomplishing—especially this season,
                which featured him at age 35 poetically playing 35 minutes per game as the regular-season MVP runner-up,
                then becoming the second-oldest NBA Finals MVP ever (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was 38 in 1985).

James heard enough rumblings entering the season to issue himself the #WashedKing challenge. No one else
                could’ve been eligible to participate. And he passed the test at a level only he could.

Which is why, holding the gold in the end, he said: “I want my damn respect.”

It has been a turbulent time for us all in the basic ways reflected by
                the NBA juggling issues of social injustice inside a pandemic-driven bubble. But what a wild ride the
                season was especially for James.

Consider how normal it’d be for a player’s season to be summed up neatly and impressively by saying he
                led the league in assists for the first time. A great achievement for any point guard … although James
                isn’t truly a point guard, of course.

It’s simplistic even to say James’ season went from one legacy bookend—filming Space Jam: A New
                Legacy—to another, carrying the Lakers’ “Leave a Legacy” mandate to the NBA championship. His didn’t
                just prance where his grass was greener. He planted seeds for growth all over the place.

Quick recap: From June to September 2019, James was on the movie set, including what co-star Don Cheadle
                told ESPN were 14-hour work days aside from James’ basketball training. From September to March, James
                played his game—while also navigating a political situation when the Lakers were in China, furthering an
                entertainment empire that promotes his heartfelt community-oriented passion projects such as allowing
                college athletes to earn money or his I PROMISE School and all its affiliated programs. He also steadied
                the Lakers’ grieving organization upon Kobe Bryant’s death. By July, James was serving as undisputed
                spokesman as the NBA and players worked through the bubble experiment, and he from there led an
                impactful More Than a Vote initiative in a key election year.

Volley it back and forth, if you wish, the simplistic question whether any basketball player before or
                after is greater than James.

What needs to be truly understood is how impossible it is even to imagine anyone could be more “more
                than an athlete” than James is in our world today.

It’s not his way to say, “You’ll miss me when I’m gone.” But on the heels of everything mentioned above
                and delivering a championship in just his second Lakers season, it’s a time when we really should stop
                and smell this rose.

When you do so much, you create a lot that others can criticize. The
                safer way is to play basketball and just go home to eat your tacos on Tuesday quietly.

At heart, though, James is a dreamer. He believes the uncommon is within his reach. Because he opens his
                mind, he becomes better educated on that uncommon. Then at that point, it isn’t just in his reach; it’s
                in his wheelhouse.

He’s the best kind of dreamer, the one who believes his dreams are calls to action. Somehow, James finds
                the energy to follow through on so much action—from beloved cartoon movie sequels to innovative social
                reform.

But that is, if you get right down to it, the most common thread when you tie the great ones together.
                Threads might be about fashion in one era and about social media in another, but those determined to do
                something can get results at any time, in any place.

Think about how much this list of names has done beyond playing basketball: James, Bryant, Shaquille
                O’Neal, James Worthy, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West.

That’s the exclusive list, newly updated with James, of Lakers players to be NBA Finals MVP.

They want to make things happen. They need to leave that legacy. They insist on being true to that
                dreamer within.

How did Bryant win a freakin’ Academy Award? Because he tapped into that little boy inside him and shared his voice. How did Johnson become an entrepreneurial sensation? Because he remembered how it felt when a youthful Earvin would slip into the executive chairs of his neighborhood business leaders and visualize life from that perch.

The mutual respect between Johnson, Bryant and James became more evident in recent years. And now James’ Lakers championship is in some ways his most impressive championship. Everyone can understand leaving home to conquer the world, as James did with Miami. Everyone can understand coming home to your people, as James did with Cleveland.

James still yearned for more, going west to live up to the Lakers’ brand that he’d always put on a
                pedestal. The transition was a struggle in various ways, even as basic as adapting to the Pacific time
                zone for the first time in his life. As he is determined to do, James did adapt.

That’s the real irony for his eager critics. The fodder is just more fuel.

Given his emphatic statement about James being the most criticized of
                all time, Davis sees the pressure that James shoulders. Davis also hears advice directly from James on
                how to handle it. That’s why Davis reports about his own pressures: “He makes it a lot easier for me.”

James does not lack for appreciation from those alongside him now. They are the ones who really know the
                level of biomechanics and bounce passes, the responsibility and reads. As beautiful from an outside
                perspective as we might admiringly see what James draws up for himself and his teammates, only the inner
                circle truly understands when such an artistic genius colors so vibrantly and sharply inside the lines.

“If you think you know, you don’t know, OK?” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. “Until you’re around him
                every day, you’re coaching him, you’re seeing his mind, you’re seeing his adjustments, seeing the way he
                leads the group. You think you know. You don’t know.”

Find inspiration in the pregame chalk toss, revived with the Lakers this season after about a four-year
                layoff. Admire how his work ethic with the lovely deep three enhances his ability to keep truckin’ to
                the rack, as always, with lunchpail and hard hat. Enjoy the ride through iconic Warner Bros.
                motion-picture worlds when LeBron and Bugs Bunny release their movie next year.

Understand how absolutely no one else could have said the words that this community needed to hear
                before the Lakers’ first game upon Bryant’s death.

The memorial service that was put together later was a wonderful tribute. James’ speech came almost a month
                earlier, when the wound was still so raw. Standing on the Lakers’ logo at center court of Staples Center
                in those white Nike Kobe 1 Protro sneakers from Bryant’s 81-point game, James’ free-flow speech was the
                hug we needed from someone who really understood him. It was so true and tight that we practically could
                feel James’ heartbeat through the No. 24 jersey covering his chest.

It remains hard to believe that James passed Bryant on the all-time scoring list the very night before
                Bryant’s death. James gushed about Bryant for nearly five continuous minutes late that night in
                Philadelphia. He actually used the word “immortal” to describe Bryant.

For as neatly and effectively as James was able to check off boxes on his lengthy to-do list, this
                season was the ultimate experience to remind him and us all: Stuff happens.

It always does. And the stuff brings unforeseen challenges to go with the known ones we already have to
                steel ourselves to tackle.

Sometimes those challenges are too much for us. That’s one reason some resent James when he is so often
                able to meet his challenges.

It’s also why others so appreciate having James around.

Kevin Ding is an independent sports writer, and the statements and views
            expressed by him do not necessarily represent the views of the
            Los Angeles Lakers.

To catch up on all of Kevin Ding's in-depth Lakers stories, visitThe Point home page.

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The Point: An Essay On Appreciating LeBron James

Seven months ago, LeBron James was honest in clarifying that any additional rest he was getting from the NBA’s COVID-triggered hiatus was not necessarily great for him or the Lakers.

“My body when we stopped playing was asking me, ‘What the hell are you doing? ... It’s March 13. You’re getting ready for the playoffs. Why are you shutting down right now?’ “ James said on the Road Trippin’ podcast. “I was right there turning the corner. I felt like I was rounding third base and getting ready for the postseason.”

James’ athletic ability is such that it’s easy to envision him rounding third, catching a football over a defensive back and churning forward to dunk a basketball on the catcher’s head at home plate.

So many skills and gifts. How we truly know LeBron, though, is only as this uniformly excellent presence on the court, at his best almost every spring in his usual place on the NBA’s biggest stage—perhaps the most consistently great player the game of basketball has ever known.

He trusts his regular training. He is dedicated to his routines. His preparation has been unbelievably consistent in producing something very close to 27 points, eight rebounds and eight assists a game … year upon year,  whatever the locale, and competing in so many championship series.

As we remember the Lakers’ 2020 NBA championship, what we should understand is how much this team—led by James being a steadying leader—met its goal only by being consistent at a time and in a place there was no normal.

Truth is, times of upheaval are when it’s most important to establish consistency in one’s life.

James tinkered with the fitness formula and found a way in Year 17 to rev his supertruck in the fall instead of the spring. He remained like clockwork: 27.6, 10.8 and 8.8 in these playoffs.

His first Lakers season had showed some great flashes but fallen victim to inconsistency. James refused—even in a world of tumult—to let that happen to his second Lakers team.

When a bubble isn’t supposed to have any firmness, it should be a lesson to us all how the Lakers managed to stand so solidly anyway.

That game everyone wanted to win so badly ended, well, badly.

Danny Green, the 2014 and ‘19 NBA champion promoted all season by James as “Dead-Shot” for his distance shooting, accepted the pass after James drew every Miami Heat player. But Green missed the open Game 5 three-pointer that would’ve put the Lakers seconds from the title in those heralded black Mamba jerseys.

Here’s the thing about consistency: It’s not an every-time deal. The math will never add up if you want something to be always or somebody to be perfection.

That said, consider this striking summary of the Lakers’ bubble playoff run : Green’s plus-minus rating (net team scoring while he is on the court) was a minus in five playoff games. The Lakers lost all five.

Green was a plus in the 16 other playoff games. The Lakers won all 16.

Games are never won or lost on one play, as we always hear. Certainly, championships are not.

If Green hits that shot and the Lakers win that night, of course his memory is magnified in Lakers lore. That’s the nature of highlight plays. He did hit three three-pointers in the Game 6 victory, for the record, despite his finger and hip injuries. But break it down better, and you gain a truer appreciation for how much Green’s consistency meant to this Lakers title:

He usually played well and did the right things for this team. They only lost when he didn’t.

Let’s take it a step further: You have James and Anthony Davis, who rightly get credit for being the team’s stars.

Those two together in 566 playoff minutes were a plus-14.1 points per 100 possessions.

The heralded basketball-IQ duo of James and Alex Caruso didn’t play nearly as much with 355 minutes, but was almost as good at plus-13.2.

Then you have James and Green, who were better than both those aforementioned tandems at plus-15.0, in a legit 429 minutes, to boot.

And now consider that Green was even more valuable next to Davis, with a whopping plus-19.6 in 458 minutes—making Green playing with Davis the actual most productive duo during the Lakers’ playoff run.

It was one of the ways the Lakers built on their regular season as opposed to having to create something altogether new: Green and Davis played together in the regular season (1,402 minutes) almost as much as Davis and James (1,455), building chemistry and consistency. And James and Green (1,343) was actually the third-most used Lakers tandem in the regular season.

This is not to argue that Green is as valuable as James or Davis. But it should illustrate how important it was to have Green’s consistent style of smart, defense-first play there next to James or Davis.

James reminded everyone in the midst of the playoff run last month. The words echoed what he has said a lot throughout his career: “One of the things I pride myself on is being available to my teammates.”

The most fundamental element of consistency is indeed just being there, especially when you give as much as James does to a team.

James didn’t just live that philosophy, however. He shared it with co-star Davis, who credits James with helping him tend to his body to be consistently available.

“He’s always trying to give me little hints of how to be better, how to be a better player and help my body,” Davis said. “I think this year, besides that major fall against the Knicks, it’s the least in my time I’ve been off the floor for my injuries. Just being around him and having him help me take care of my body and some of the things he does, I’m able to stay on the floor and play the game that I love and compete.”

When Rajon Rondo had to leave the NBA’s campus in Florida with an early thumb injury, the team worked hard to keep consistency and engagement for him by including him on all the coaching-staff Zoom meetings and eventually having Kurt Rambis personally facilitate Rondo’s recovery workouts. A creature of habit who would admit to being annoyed that he couldn’t hand-pick exactly what he wanted to eat in the bubble to maintain his body the way he wanted, the consistency was invaluable to Rondo jumping in after missing the first round and giving the Lakers 8.9 points and 6.6 assists per game with his usual strong voice.

Caruso stayed in the bubble early on rather than leave for his sister’s wedding. Who knows how that decision going the other way would’ve altered his and the team’s stability? Kentavious Caldwell-Pope opted not to bring his kids into the bubble late because “I wanted to focus on this playoff series and become world champs. That was my focus. I wanted my kids here, but I didn't want that distraction. I just wanted to be focused.”

Up and down the roster, the commitment was consistent. Lakers vice president Rob Pelinka took to saying that this difficult process would produce a champion that deserves “a gold star instead of an asterisk.” It was appropriate, because the Lakers became the study group that took pride in doing its homework every day, finding joy in the consistency of work and togetherness.

Pelinka organized team-bonding activities besides all the customary road-trip stuff of video games or rookies singing birthday serenades. Much of the steadiness, though, was Frank Vogel and James demanding focus in the film room as they did from the very first day of training camp.

Asked about specific efforts from James to unite this team, Vogel answered: “That’s tough to say. It literally happened every day. Every day, we’re in film and we’re talking about our team.”

And during that awkward pre-Florida stretch when they couldn’t huddle at all together, the Lakers still had weekly tele-conversations to keep connected. They did the best they could looking consistency before the bubble—and then they made sure to find it inside.

But hark back again to how James was feeling at one time, fretting about the team’s “slippage,” and understand that all the Lakers’ consistency could never be assumed.

“We’re not together,” James said in early April. “We’re not preparing, we’re not practicing, we don’t have the film sessions, we’re not preparing every single day for combat. So how long will it take for us to get back into a rhythm? That will be the most challenging thing, I believe.”

It was not a season restart for this team. It was a renewal. This group already had the relationships built, the professionalism ingrained and the on-court identity of defense, pace and passing.

They would up being spectacular. Inspiring. Everything champions are in their glory.

Just don’t forget that they were consistent, because that’s how the great ones truly do their great things.

Kevin Ding is an independent sports writer, and the statements and views
      expressed by him do not necessarily represent the views of the
      Los Angeles Lakers.

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The Point: Lakers Understood the Value of Consistency—Especially in Volatile Season

Championship Press Conference: Dwight Howard

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Championship Press Conference: LeBron James

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Championship Press Conference: Rob Pelinka

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Championship Press Conference: Rajon Rondo

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We spend part of our days trying to
        inspire others onward, part of our days trying to make others proud of
        us. Much of that time we don’t even know how others are being affected
        by us.

Certainly we don’t know in cases where the people have passed.

It didn’t stop Adam Silver from trying to make David Stern proud with
        the bold, ultimately immaculate NBA bubble model. Or Jeanie Buss from
        trying to make Jerry Buss proud with the championship that her father
        dearly coveted for the Lakers to tie the Celtics at 17.

This Lakers team, featuring so many guys fortunate enough to be directly
        inspired by Kobe Bryant, deeply understood the meaning of trying to make
        him proud in this year of his death. In doing so, it meant inspiring
        others everywhere—same as whenever Bryant or other greats won NBA
        titles, urging us all toward our own excellence.

To understand why it meant so much for Anthony Davis to make Bryant
        proud, you have to understand it goes beyond their personal
        relationship.

Yes, Bryant welcomed Davis post-trade to the Lakers’ family. Yes, before
        that Bryant counseled Davis how it was more important for a leader to be
        respected than liked. Yes, before that Bryant was the elder statesman on
        the 2012 U.S. Olympic team who appreciated the 19-year-old Davis’ wide
        eyes signaled natural curiosity—Bryant’s favorite quality in people—as
        opposed to fear.

However, it goes back to Davis as a boy on the South Side of Chicago,
        when he was inspired by Bryant in ways Bryant couldn’t possibly know. It
        was a grandfather and grandson, one passing on admiration and
        inspiration to the other. On the porch was their own private Kobe fan
        club, same as countless others all around the world.

Here’s howDavis explained it
        back in 2015, when he got a tattoo to honor Lamont Eberhardt, his mom’s
        dad who died in 2010—the year of the Lakers’ last previous title: “I
        looked up to him. Every day I would go to his house and we would just
        talk basketball. He always pushed me. He always talked about Kobe, Kobe,
        Kobe. He always wanted to make me go out there and—I don’t want to say
        be better, but—do some of the same things [Kobe] did.”

A newly minted NBA champion, Davis now has. He pushed through every
        ache, flat-out ignored real injuries and played every playoff game. He
        hit a winning shot in the Western Conference Finals that sparked kids
        everywhere to re-enact it and imagine being A.D. (even if A.D. still
        yelled out “Kobe” after making it).

Then Davis played the kind of max-effort defense that has to make
        talented players everywhere, including his fellow NBA stars,
        re-evaluate how much energy can and should be poured into defense if you
        want to win it all.

The Lakers’ playoff motto was “Leave a Legacy.”

The Lakers’ championship accomplishment was doing just that.

It was the first time in the NBA’s
        74-year history that the championship was held at a single site. Still,
        the 2020 playoff season might’ve had greater reach than any. To borrow
        the words of the day, this one hit different. The statements that the
        players regularly made about social injustice showed deep unity in the
        midst of their fierce competition.

Years from now, when the photos or videos are viewed, people will
        wonder, “Why wasn’t this championship played in a real NBA arena? Why
        was “Black Lives Matter” written on the court? What did those particular
        messages on the backs of the jerseys mean?”

Healthy discussion will ensue, and the Lakers are tied to that legacy.
        Their players fulfilled their agenda on two epic fronts. And that’s not
        even accounting for the unheard-of pandemic backdrop that left James
        writing a verbal thank-you card on championship night to Apple pioneer
        Steve Jobs.

“Big-time shoutout to the late, great Steve Jobs,” James said after the
        Lakers’ nearly hundred days of isolation, “because without him, without
        his vision, those FaceTime calls wouldn’t be possible.”

Even though James’ legacy is undeniably furthered by a fourth NBA
        championship, he spent the final moments of the last game immersed in
        how much of Davis’ legacy was being laid.

Because they share what Davis terms “true friendship,” James
        good-naturedly ribbed Davis for his emotions in the moment.

“You’re soft! Oh, you crybaby!” James needled Davis.

But behind the veil of those words, James was actually seeing his own
        soul when he first won an NBA title.

“Just the excitement. The ‘I can't believe this.’ I definitely saw
        myself: [age] 27 LeBron, 27 A.D.,” James said. “I definitely saw myself
        in that. And what it did for me in my career? It basically let me know
        that the work I put in on my craft, and the way I play the game, how I
        was taught to play the game when I picked up a basketball when I was 8
        years old, it’s OK to play that way and be able to win.

“No matter how many people tell you: ‘You should maybe shoot more, you
        should maybe do this more, you should maybe be like him more,’ it let me
        know that the way I play basketball and the way I was taught to play
        basketball is the right way to play it, because you do see results.

“And then it just continues to boost your confidence. Not saying that
        A.D. doesn't already have confidence, but it takes it to another level.”

James’ make-the-right-play mindset by now is more accurately described
        as basketball transformation than mere inspiration. The game has shifted
        that materially through his style. How much of the Lakers’ overall
        harmony should be attributed to James’ on-court generosity is impossible
        to quantify, but he definitely led this horse to water.

And it definitely drank: James and Davis were the first pair of
        teammates in NBA history to average 25-plus points while shooting at
        least 50 percent from the field over an entire postseason (minimum six
        games).

What James added foremost to his personal legacy was reinforcing his
        status as an overachiever, even with all the initial outrageous
        expectations and all the past accomplishments.

“No matter what I’ve done in my career to this point, there’s still
        little rumblings of doubt or comparing me to the history of the game and
        ‘Has he done this? Has he done that?’ James said. “So having that in my
        head, having that in my mind, saying to myself, ‘Why not still have
        something to prove?’ I think it fuels me.”

Meanwhile, less seasoned players such as Alex Caruso, Kyle Kuzma and
        Kentavious Caldwell-Pope went through lean years with the Lakers but
        could preen in altogether different images as Lakers champions now.
        Once-heralded veterans such as Rajon Rondo and Dwight Howard
        unequivocally changed the twisted storylines that cast them as players
        unable to maximize team-first roles.

“A couple years ago I said, ‘I am a champion,’ and people laughed,”
        Howard said. “It wasn’t being a champion of a basketball game, but a
        champion in life—knowing that there’s many times that we all fail and I
        fail, but instead of folding and laying down, a champ gets back up. I’m
        just happy to celebrate this moment with the Lakers and Laker nation and
        my teammates. It’s been an amazing journey for all of us.”

As much chagrin as there was when they
        didn’t win Game 5 in the Kobe-designed “Black Mamba” uniforms, the
        Lakers instead won Game 6 and commemorated their white uniforms.

Any student of recent Lakers history should remember the only other
        truly significant moment for the Lakers in white: Bryant’s 81-point
        game.

But many might not recall that Jeanie Buss, while her father was still
        in charge, was instrumental in the 2002 creation of those white
        uniforms. Those seeking poetry with their legacy will appreciate the
        symbolism at work in the Lakers winning in white: Jeanie’s breakthrough
        as the NBA’s first female championship owner certainly qualifies as
        inspiration on its own.

Truth be told, the Lakers were initially trying to honor another of
        their legends with those white uniforms. It was the year after
        broadcaster Chick Hearn’s death, and with the awareness that Hearn’s
        100th birthday would’ve landed on a Sunday, the Lakers elected to wear
        white for all Sunday home games.

The beauty of being with the Lakers is that you can learn from and build
        upon all the greatness of those before you—if you are open to that.

If you are curious the way Kobe was and A.D. is.

If you are truly secure that you can leave a legacy.

“The true mark of a legacy,” Bryant said in December 2017 when the
        Lakers retired Nos. 8 and 24, “is how it affects the next generation.”

The fact that both James and Davis added tattoos in honor of Bryant just
        days after his death in January is a testament to how much the current
        Lakers stars cared about continuing Bryant’s legacy.

The best way, though, to make others proud or inspired is simply to stay
        true to the legacy that is your own.

Davis already had a tattoo on his shoulder. It features his late
        grandfather’s smiling face with the words, “Rest Up, Champ.”

“Champ” is what he called his grandfather.

“Champ” is also what his grandfather called him.

How sweet it is to be able to live up to the word now.