What Was Your Favorite Laker Squad Of All Time?

The 2010 team

Beating the evil empire is always special and game 7 is the greatest basketball game ever, a war of attrition.

This was also the hardest one arguably (1988 was a slugfest as well). We limped into the playoffs that year and took every team's hardest punch. Several players were playing through injuries and we relied on a few last minute heroics such as Artest and Pau's tip ins to win games.

Then the 7 game series against you know who. Ron's defense against the wheelchair was key. That game 7, wow what a game. And it was against them, which makes it special. And to top it all off was Ron's press conference.

 

ironically, 2010 was the weakest of the 08-10 finals teams

 

Beg to differ my friend. 2008 we were sans Bynum and *with* Radmo. I’d take 2010 over 2008, even if Bynum played on one leg.

 

Huh? The 2010 team was definitely better than 2008 because they had Bynum. I’d argue they were better than 2009 because Artest was a better matchup against Pierce. I’m not sure that 2009 team beats the C Bags in 2010 without Ron Artest that’s how important he was.

 

IMO its 2009 > 2010 > 2008. We never got to see the 08 team fully healthy, so you can't really put them over two title teams. Artest was huge for the Pierce matchup specifically, but that 09 team overwhelmed opponents with size and skill every single night.

 

1986-87 Lakers, who somehow unseated the 1971-72 team that went 69-13 with a 33 game winning streak.

The 1986-87 team: 65-17 (easily a top 10 greatest NBA team):

Kareem C 7'2"
Magic. G 6'9" NBA MVP, Finals MVP
Coop G 6'5" DPOY, all-NBA First Team
AC Green F 6'9"
Worthy F 6'9"
Rambis. F 6'8"
Byron Scott G 6'3"
Mychal Thompson F 6' 10"

Wes Matthews
Adrian Branch
Mike Smrek
Billy Thompson
Frank Brickowski

Swept DEN in 1st round
Eliminated GSW in 5 games
Swept SEA in the WCF
Beat the damned C-Bags in 6 to win it all.

In one of those books about this era, I recall the discussion about training camp for this team. The previous season they had lost to HOU in the WCF 4-1 after winning Game 1 and every guy on the Lakers was pissed at their own performance. The buzz around the team as they prepared for this season was that they all knew they were the greatest team that had ever played, but just had to prove it. They did.

I remember the first game of that season: at HOU! Time for revenge! Whatta drag when we lost Game 1 of 82 to these guys, by 10 points.
Then they went on a 9 game winning streak. They beat the Bags in BOS to go to 16-4 in a game I'll never forget, 'cuz it was my b-day and man I hated the Bags. The Bags hadn't lost a game at home in over a year, a 49 game winning streak. Lakers shut them down in the 4th Q , winning the quarter 29-16. Magic: 31; Kareem 26; Worthy 25; Bird 26; Parish 23. Lakers 117; BOS 110.

Then we beat the Bags in the Finals. This Laker team played like a gleaming, fast, well-oiled machine.

Sorry to get all Old Skool on y'alls.

 

I knew we had elephants in the chat, but daaaannnnnggg, that is some amazing recollection.

it's awesome to have a team to root for that triggers such core memories. We are all truly blessed.

 

Still new school for me. LOL

 

Gotta go with 1999-2000 squad.
We had soooo much talent since acquiring Shaq and Kobe but couldn’t put it all together until Phil came in. I became a fan in the mid 80s, but my obsession didn’t really begin until I got a little older, around 1990.
I loved the Van Exel, Eddie, Elden, Threatt, Lynch, Vlade squads too.
So scrappy and lacking a big name “star,” but they played together and for one another.

 

I was a new Laker fan-child and followed the 1971-72 team: listened or watched every second of every game. Man, I had no idea until maybe 10 years later how spoiled I was as a child. At the start of the season I had been reading about the history of the NBA and how the Los Angeles Lakers had never won a championship. But 3 of the greatest players ever (???) (!!!) were starting for us that year: Wilt/Baylor/West. I didn't understand why we couldn't win and Boston had all those banners. Elgin had a ruptured Achilles 2 games into the season, so that was that. Who would take his place as a starter? Some rookie from Columbia, Jim McMillian. What a drag!

Needless to say, it was NOT a drag: one of the greatest NBA teams ever, and at that time easily in the Top 3 Greatest: 69-13, 33 game winning streak during the regular season, just rolled over everyone in the playoffs. Laker fans sensed we'd win our first ring in LA.

Game 1 of the Finals, against Knicks. Willis Reed out with an injury. We're at home (the Fabulous Forum). But the Knicks couldn't miss, shot 53% and beat us by 22 points. Even without Willis Reed. Man that was dark. One sportswriter - maybe Jim Murray of the LA Times - said he'd never seen Laker fans file out of the building with such dejected looks on their faces.

Then we won the next 4. As a child, I knew what West had gone through with BOS in the 1960s. I knew he must feel some sense of relief. I was a kid. I didn't understand the complexity of human emotions. It took me a long time to understand how West must have felt. He had suffered a lot of injuries and before the season considered retirement. He thought he had a terrible series against the Knicks. He was All-NBA and All-Defense First Team.

The series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty: I enjoyed it, but my qualms are this: the writers saw the old-guard Lakers as from an older generation - they were - but played the "generation game" that we see all the time, every day, when we read about "Are Gen X to blame for...?" (society's failures), or "Why do Boomers think they're so smart?" Etc: The phenomena of Generations is interesting for Sociological reasons, but as a framing device it tends to function as Divide and Conquer: the ultra-wealthy skate, while the rest of us fight among generations as to who to blame. "We have OUR Lakers; you old guys had YOURS. Ours is better." Idiotic.

The writers of Winning Time, in their depictions of people like West and Hearn, played too much into that shallow ressentiment between generations, and I thought it was weak. I'm arguing we need solidarity, or we're going to get effed by...the kinds of humans now in charge. Bugger-all the clash of generations crap!

Chick was still thriving for the Winning Time/Showtime/Magic/Kareem/Coop/Worthy team, of course. But he was also dead when they wrote the series. I thought the depictions of Chick and West were callous, shallow, inaccurate, and childish. For reasons of bad faith.

I still think the 1986-87 team was better, mostly because the terrain of the NBA had opened up and the competition was, in general, tougher.

 

1980 The Magic man became a legend as a rookie.

1985 Cap took home the Finals MVP at 38! Closed them dirty little green goblins out on their home floor!

All the Chip teams were special, those two are my favorites tho.