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Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James sits on the floor as he waits for the trophy ceremony to begin after the Lakers beat the Denver Nuggets in an NBA conference playoff basketball game on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida The Lakers won 117-107 to win the series 4-1. (AP Photo / Mark J. Terrill)
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida – Here’s a list of some of the things the Los Angeles Lakers have been through in the past 12 months: playing through a politically charged situation in China during preseason and more massive fallout after returning home, the death of Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash, a pandemic, and a game suspension of more than four months, the season moved to a bubble 2,500 miles from their homes, the ongoing battle against racial inequality in this country and emotions frayed to the point of giving up. It was considered.
And here they are.
After all that drama, all that heartbreak, all those challenges, the NBA Finals await.
A most unpredictable season has a very predictable finalist. LeBron James, the once perennial Beast from the East, is now the Best of the West. James and the Lakers are the champions of the Western Conference, the best player on the team is now ready to go to the final for the tenth time, the first nine of those to come during his stints in the Eastern Conference with Cleveland and Miami, and his team is ready to reach the title. series for the first time in 10 years, when Bryant won his fifth and final championship.
“Every time you go purple and gold, you think about his legacy,” James said. “You think about him and what he meant to this franchise for more than 20 years. What it represented, both on the ground and off the ground. What he demanded of his companions, what he demanded of himself. We have some similarities in that regard ”.
The Lakers clinched that spot in the finals on Saturday night, beating Denver in Game 5 of the Western finals, the game just being 365 days away from the team’s first press session to kick off this season. Yes, that means this season is now extended to a second year for the Lakers.
Get four more wins and a heartbreaking season will have the sweetest ending possible.
“This is what I came here for,” James said.
James is making his ninth final trip in the past 10 seasons; the only exception in that stretch was last year when the Lakers didn’t make the playoffs. Anthony Davis is going into the title round for the first time. So is Frank Vogel for the first time as a head coach, after having three great opportunities with Indiana in 2012, 2013 and 2014 frustrated by James and the Heat in each of those seasons.
James has often said that he has been motivated by skeptics who said he could not lead the Lakers back to the top of the NBA. Vogel has seen that motivation drive him throughout the season.
“So much respect for him and love for him,” Vogel said. “He has empowered this whole group by just accepting the plan we had with how we wanted to play this year and getting the whole group to participate.”
The NBA Finals will have a showdown made for television, no matter what happens in the remainder of a game or two of the Eastern Finals.
Miami leads Boston 3-2 in that series; if the Heat advance, it will be James against the franchise that helped him win his first two rings during the famous “big 3” era there from 2011 to 2014, and Heat president Pat Riley taking on an organization that He started him on his way to becoming one of the greatest winners in the game’s history when he guided the “Showtime” Lakers to four titles in his first seven seasons running the show.
If the Celtics advance, the finals will be the two most storied clubs in NBA history: the Celtics 17-time champions against the Lakers 16-time champions, going head-to-head in the title series for the 13th time. And when the confetti fell on Saturday night, James confessed that he was looking forward to what would come next.
“Boston had a few moments in my head,” James said. “Miami also had some moments in my head, about how challenging it will be, whoever wins the next series.”
This season has gone on so long, with so many twists and turns, that it’s easy to forget that this is still the first race for all of these Lakers together. Vogel is in his first season as the team’s coach. Davis and James were teammates this season for the first time. Almost the entire roster was reviewed last summer, which was technically two summers ago, but it’s still “last summer” in NBA parlance.
They made this season seem easy at times. It was the complete opposite, and James knows the next four wins will be the hardest to come by.
“The work is not done,” James said.
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