Article Favorites

lalkding

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.

the-point-an-essay-on-appreciating-lebron-james

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.

the-point-lakers-understood-the-value-of-consistency-especially-in-volatile-season

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

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.

the-point-they-spoke-their-message-won-their-title-and-left-their-legacy

The Point: They Spoke Their Message, Won Their Title and Left Their Legacy

More than a year ago, when the longest season had not yet begun, on the day before the Lakers held their first practice, vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka fielded a question at Media Day about the team’s expectations for the season.

Pelinka referenced “two of the best players in the universe … that’s a really strong starting point.” While being determined to live in the now, Pelinka allowed the goal of being “the last team standing.”

Sitting next to Pelinka way back on that Sept. 27, 2019 day, Frank Vogel likewise stressed staying in the moment and the team’s ability to achieve the “ultimate prize.” But then Vogel said: “It’s not going to happen if we don’t come together,” as Pelinka nodded in agreement. “How strongly we become connected, become a team-first team, and how quickly we become a team-first team, that will dictate ultimately what success we have.”

Late Tuesday night in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, after moving one victory away from that ultimate prize, Vogel brought the idea up again. Then again.

“We’re a team-first team and we trust all our teammates,” Vogel said. “We trust all five guys on the court to make big plays, and that’s what happened tonight in the fourth.”

Team-first team? The Lakers are more like first-team All-NBA, you might say. They have two of the five first-team All-NBA players on their team, and no one is arguing that or debating the worth for that.

Yes, the Lakers are close to a championship in this COVID-delayed and -extended season because of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, healthy and hearty.

They are also close to a championship because of their team-first mentality, which did come quickly and continues now in their signature style of play.

Ask yourself: How often have you seen the Lakers play in a manner that could be described as selfish? It simply doesn’t fit what they do.

The Lakers’ superstars like to pass the ball and are committed to team defense. The Lakers’ role players like to pass the ball and are committed to team defense. If anything, everyone on the team encourages Davis to take as big a slice of the scoring pie as he can because it usually benefits the team overall.

But there was Davis on Tuesday night, in a league where the stars often operate as designated hitters waiting for their next turn at bat, pouring himself into fielding with nary a second thought. The team needed his defense first, so he was defense-first.

Miami’s Jimmy Butler had carried his team to victory in Game 3 with 26 of his 40 points coming in the paint as he sought out smaller Lakers on switches. He couldn’t in Game 4 with Davis denying him, and after we’d all seen someone categorized as a big man continually guard an elite wing scorer in a fashion that just doesn’t happen in this sport, Butler was almost at a loss for words about Davis: “I mean, he’s an incredible defender.”

Aside from a throwaway game in their regular-season finale, the last time Miami scored 96 or fewer points was nine months ago. It was the latest masterful defensive effort by the Lakers in the playoffs, and the variety has been quite nice. Double-team traps on Damian Lillard and James Harden offered gorgeous synchronicity in the rotations for Lakers to cover for each other. Like Davis just did in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, James offered an individual-downsizing defensive display late in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals by repeatedly smothering a smaller player in Denver’s Jamal Murray.

The Lakers had been open to James also guarding Butler down the stretch Tuesday, but Davis allowed them to save that chess move. It also freed James to bring more energy to his offense down the stretch, and the game’s pivotal late buckets were Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s, both products of Miami overloading its defense toward James.

Butler, Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson all bunched the lane to protect against James’ freight train in transition while Caldwell-Pope raced to the corner for a three-pointer. Next trip down, with Robinson prioritizing helping Butler on James, Caldwell-Pope faked a recovering Robinson and blew by him for a layup.

“I try not to worry about it if I’m getting shots or not; I know they are going to eventually come,” Caldwell-Pope said. “Just trying to stay within myself.”

Again, no selfishness. Instead, self-control is required. But that’s how Alex Caruso has a .625 effective field-goal percentage in the Finals—better than James’ .595 and behind only Davis’ .652.

“We know what A.D. and LeBron are going to bring to the table every night,” Caruso said. “They are going to get their attention. They are going to get their shots. They are going to get their numbers because they’re two of the best players in the world. Our third star or best player is whoever has the open shot.”

Rajon Rondo’s stellar ball-handling and distribution has solidified the offensive teamwork in the playoffs. But the glory of individual offense is flat-out overrated with this group. You can hear it from Kyle Kuzma, who doesn’t get to show all he can do these days on offense but said: “That’s why we’re so good and that’s why we’re in the Finals: We really care about defense.”

This is how a team passionate about being team-first sounds.

“I just want to finish this last game, if it is, to just play my hardest and play my heart out,” Kuzma said. “When I focus on just doing that, then good things happen. For me, I’m not focused on anything else but just doing my role and playing with my heart.”

Not long after Vogel first mentioned that aspiration to become a “team-first team” in his first season coaching the Lakers, James was speaking to reporters after practice on the third day of training camp. Much attention was being paid to how California governor Gavin Newsom had just appeared on James’ talk show The Shop to sign SB 206, known as the Fair Pay to Play Act allowing college athletes to accept compensation.

As proud of the bill and potential social change as he was, two and a half minutes into discussing it, James interrupted and said: “Last question about this.”

“We’re here at the Lakers’ facility, and I don't want to take away from what I’m here [for] now,” he said on Sept. 30, 2019. “This is the season. This is the Lakers.”

The next question to come to James was about Vogel.

“We all want a coach that holds us accountable and puts us in position to win,” James said. “It’s not what LeBron wants with a coach; it’s never just about me. It’s about the whole team—and how we can all be as great as we can be.”

That there is the team-first mentality of Vogel’s dreams, and without a global icon of James’ stature perpetuating it, there’s no chance it would’ve come to this kind of fruition.

Every team at every level of sports builds its truest teamwork when it practices together. As a more experienced team that likes to rest its legs, the Lakers don’t have any rotation players who qualify as Gen Z, born in 1996 or later. So, they even use their screen time to grow their teamwork.

It has been perfect for Vogel, whose first NBA job was as a video coordinator.

“Obviously starting in the film room, you learn how to use that to send messages to change what’s happening on the floor,” Vogel said. “This group, in particular led by LeBron, has had extraordinary attentiveness and carryover in the ability to take what we are teaching in the film room, what we are attempting to change in the film room, and apply it to the court without a lot of practice time and without a lot of reps and drills to make sure that it gets done. They have had a unique ability to do that.”

With consistently one day off between playoff games, being able to adjust quickly and restfully as a unit has been even more important than usual. It has only furthered the deep trust throughout this team.

After the Lakers took their 3-1 NBA Finals lead, these were the first words James spoke in his postgame press conference: “At the end of the day, if you’re on the floor at crunch time, then I believe in you.”

James and Davis have long been viewed as inclusive leaders on their respective teams, and they’ve come together to make sure their Lakers team has become the strongest community—all the more important in this extended isolation of the NBA bubble.

But you can’t really be in isolation if you’re a team-first team.

“There is nobody here but us, so we spend a lot of quality time just talking and being around each other every day,” Dwight Howard said.

By normal rules, the Lakers would’ve held home-court advantage in all four of these playoff series, and studies show the impact from comforts of home and fan support is even more pronounced in the NBA playoffs.

The team comes first, and that has been more than enough for the Lakers.

the-point-lebron-and-a-d-remain-nba-finals-stars-but-teamwork-covers-this-lakers-sky

The Point: LeBron and A.D. Remain NBA Finals Stars, But Teamwork Covers This Lakers Sky

In the best of times, you make the best of your circumstances. That’s what makes it the best: You take an opportunity or a challenge and simply make your moment. Feels good, feels worthwhile, feels so alive.

It’s possible to do all that even in what can be viewed as the worst of times. A pandemic. Social injustice. Tragic turns.

From the beginning of this, the NBA hatching this plan to restart the season was about making the best of that worst. And as we near the end of this, we better understand how the people who exit the cocoon as champions won’t just be the ones who played great basketball—they will have truly made the most of their time isolated in the NBA’s campus in every way.

The Lakers and Heat began the NBA Finals on Wednesday, their 85th consecutive day away from the rest of the world. This is a tale of two cities—glam vacation destinations and frequent Super Bowl hosts—finally meeting in a sports title round for the first time … with everyone instead being bound to a bubble.

Then the Lakers fell behind early. Didn’t look fast or sharp. Went down by 13 points.

They just shook it off. Didn’t panic. Anthony Davis just kept playing hard. Rajon Rondo deftly reset the table the way he has throughout the playoffs.

In keeping with the way this team has made the most of difficult moments, the Lakers scored 75 of the next 105 points in the game. That means that the Lakers beat the Heat by two full points every minute of the game for the next 22 minutes.

It was stunning. Since the NBA began tracking play-by-play in 1997, no team had ever trailed by double digits but then led by double digits at the end of the first half in the Finals. Almost symbolic of how taxing this whole run has been, Miami’s three best players—Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic—wound up all visibly hurting with injuries as Game 1 wore on.

The Lakers’ victory served as a powerful demonstration of driven-from-within passion and community poise, the intangibles that have so majorly helped the Lakers harmonize throughout this longest road trip in basketball history.

“However many days it is, it feels like five years—so it really doesn’t matter,” LeBron James had said Tuesday. Then he added: “I’ve been as locked in as I’ve ever been in my career.”

Said Kyle Kuzma: “We kind of came here with one goal: to win the championship. So guys were already motivated. Obviously tough days here, but we’ve got each other here. And we’re a family. We’re all brothers. We all talk to each other every day, hang out with each other, and make this experience fun.”

It’s like the old quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln reminds us: Most folks are as happy as they make their minds up to be.

Some people wondered if Davis was ready for big-game pressures. He’s a guy who openly admits feeling nervous before series-opening tip-offs. He had previously won only one playoff series in his career.

Well, the Lakers are now 13-3 with Davis—a .813 winning playoff percentage. (As prolific as the Lakers’ past playoff successes are, their NBA-best .597 is still not .813!) In his first time on the Finals stage, he again played his game, showing his size, skill and motor with 34 points, nine rebounds, five assists, three blocks and just one turnover.

Consider this: The all-time leader in points per playoff game, minimum 25 games played, is Michael Jordan at 33.4. Now holding down second place in NBA history: Davis at 29.8.

Davis was, as the previous stat shows, highly productive in his previous playoff games with New Orleans, even if those were early round matchups without national or international fanfare.

In a weird way, Davis has found solace in how impossible it is for these huge, late-playoff games to feel too different. They don’t feel hyper-publicized while everyone remains in this bubble.

“You see the [NBA Finals] decal on the floor,” Davis said after Game 1. “You see all the people in the [virtual] stands, essentially. You see the patch on the back of your jersey, the patch on the side of your warmups. You kind of see that it’s a Finals game.

“But once you go out there and start playing, I don’t think the fans are allowed to make any noise, so it feels like a regular game in the bubble—even though that pressure of the Finals is still there. So I think it makes it a lot easier, especially for our guys to just go out there and play. At Staples [Center], it would have been a lot crazier, just playing in front of your home fans and sharing these moments with them. I think just being here, it definitely calmed the nerves a lot faster.”

If you read that closely, you understand that while Davis can miss the support or energy provided by outside influences, he chooses to focus on the positive of extra serenity that can be found here.

It helps him maximize his love for the game and determination to become a champion.

“For some guys it was tough for them to be here for a long time,” Davis said. “You kind of figure out the ones who really love the game and just want to win and just want to play basketball. A lot of guys on our team loved it. Loved it here because we had no distractions. All we’ve got to do is play basketball.

“You have no distractions. You don’t have to worry about nothing else that’s going on in the world and just play. Then when you're outside of the bubble, you’ve got a million different things coming at you.”

There’s no questioning how comfortable Davis has looked in the restart. It actually makes total sense, because he’s just the sort of chill-with-teammates dude who has always reveled in quality time with the group.

He mentioned Thursday how the connections have strengthened during all this time: “Everyone’s confidence is very high. Guys trust each other more. Guys are locked in more. It all ties together when you get to this stage.”

He cited James, Rondo, Jared Dudley and Markieff Morris as teammates who have invested deeply in ensuring Davis dons the cape and is the superhero he can be, soaring throughout the bubble’s airspace.

It has, Davis said, encouraged him to “play with the swag that you know that you have.”

There are 92 family members, including Davis’ parents, now in attendance—after going through the requisite quarantine—to watch the rest of the Finals, according the NBA. For the Lakers, of course it’s a wonderful boost.

In another sense, it’s tough for anyone who wasn’t there when the Lakers played the Clippers in the Oct. 30 restart opener—with more than three million followers added to the NBA’s social accounts from then till now, the league helping brighten the world outside—to be a real part of the crew.

“We just try to find joy in the small things that we have here,” Dwight Howard said. “During this time there are a lot of reasons we could be depressed, could be down, sad about just being here while there is a pandemic going on. But we all understand what the mission is.”

Article Favorites

The Point: An Essay On Appreciating LeBron James

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

The Point: They Spoke Their Message, Won Their Title and Left Their Legacy

The Point: LeBron and A.D. Remain NBA Finals Stars, But Teamwork Covers This Lakers Sky

The Point: However Dark the Days, Lakers Have Brought Their Brightness to the Bubble

The Point: A.D. Dominance Arises From Accountability, Determination

The Point: Back in the Conference Finals, Lakers Are Feeling Fresh This Time

The Point: As Nice as Scoring Is, Lakers Role Players Are Committed to Scrapping