Wednesday 14 October 2020 22:29, UK
Delving into the history books, Huw Hopkins compares the achievements of LeBron James and Anthony Davis this year to the Lakers' legendary one-two punch combinations.
Throughout this season, the Los Angeles Lakers showed periods of supremacy and moments of concern but they secured the top spot in the Western Conference and dominated throughout the playoffs despite not knowing the team's third best player to support LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
You can understand why these worries never truly went away: it had been a long time since a team with a one-two punch led their team to an NBA championship.
The Golden State Warriors arguably had four great players during their title-winning seasons, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Miami Heat had a pair of ‘Big Threes’, and the San Antonio Spurs still had Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, even if Kawhi Leonard was taking on more responsibility at that stage.
There have been some standouts in the past decade: Dirk Nowitzki and Leonard were the big cranks that completed the well-oiled machines with the Dallas Mavericks and Toronto Raptors, respectively, but the last time there was a duo ruling the NBA was another Lakers pairing: Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol.
But while Gasol did a lot more for that championship squad than he gets credit for, it’s fair to say that the one-two punch between 2007-2010 didn’t quite match some other iconic pairings to grace the purple and gold.
This year’s combination, however, is something else. Matching the talent of a generation in James with an unstoppable big man like Davis is a proven entity, and it is something the Lakers specialise in. But how does 2020’s duo compare to the franchise greats?
After the franchise won five championships in Minneapolis during its first 11 seasons, the Lakers moved to Hollywood and struggled to recreate the success straight away. Finals appearances were plentiful but getting over the hump was more difficult.
However, in the 1968-69 season Wilt Chamberlain - considered to be the most dominant individual offensive force in the league - was at the centre of possibly the biggest blockbuster trade up to that point in NBA history. The Philadelphia 76ers and the Lakers swapped good pieces for a reigning MVP.
During his first season in LA, Chamberlain’s point production dropped. In truth, it had been decreasing during his latter years in Philadelphia due to his increasing age, but he was still unstoppable when the team needed him to be. And while he was possibly the second best player in LA, he was part of a Big Three alongside West and Elgin Baylor. His averages of 20 points and 21 rebounds were both the worst of his career up until that point, but he had much more help on his new team and they reached the Finals straight away.
However, it wouldn't be until 1971-72 that LA finally won it all. West and Chamberlain were at the tail end of their careers, and Baylor had retired the previous season. While the one-two punch averaged career lows during the regular season, their performances grew through each round of the playoffs.
In the Finals, Chamberlain averaged 19 points and 21 rebounds to win the Finals MVP, while West added 19 points and Gail Goodrich picked up the leader scorer’s role.
En route to that Finals appearance, Chamberlain faced the Milwaukee Bucks and a young, talented center named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. While Chamberlain outplayed his rival for that series, it would be the last championship LA would win until Jabbar joined the franchise a few years later.
In a move not dissimilar to Wilt Chamberlain’s exit from Philadelphia, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won a championship with the Milwaukee Bucks that drafted him, then requested to move to a bigger city that could better suit his cultural needs.
A few years later, the Lakers drafted Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson as the number one pick in the 1979 NBA Draft, and the new duo was set to take over the league.
It didn’t take long, and in their first regular season game, Johnson was so overjoyed that his team had won, that he leapt into Abdul-Jabbar’s arms and needed to be told to calm down. But by the end of the season, he was celebrating again as the team won their first championship of five during the 1980s. In the deciding game, Abdul-Jabbar was injured, but Johnson led his team to victory to win the Finals MVP in his rookie season.
While Johnson averaged near triple-doubles and would push the pace as much as possible, creating Showtime Basketball, when there wasn’t a fast-break basket available, Abdul-Jabbar was the perfect big with the best sky-hook in the game - and is unmatched still to this day.
The pair led the Lakers to their greatest prolonged success, visiting the Finals eight out of 10 seasons before Abdul-Jabbar retired at 43 in 1989.
Johnson’s health forced him into retirement in 1992, but he returned for a season in 1996 to plenty of fanfare. At the end of the season, Magic issued a statement that said: “I am going out on my terms, something I couldn’t say when I aborted a comeback in 1992.”
Magic Johnson’s final departure officially turned the page on his and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s chapter, but within weeks a new one-two punch had been put together - or, at least, one half of it had in Shaquille O’Neal, while rookie Kobe Bryant took a little longer to reach his potential.
Despite some growing pains, the Lakers returned to the top of the NBA universe in just a few years, and began one of the most successful three-year stretches in history. The 1999-2000 season saw former Chicago Bulls head coach Phil Jackson - no stranger to difficult personalities - take on the task of getting two absolutely polar opposite personalities to gel on the court.
Reporter Jeff Pearlman covered the Lakers at this time and recently published a new book, Three Ring Circus, chronicling the period. While discussing the book, he explained that Bryant and O’Neal didn’t get on from the very start.
“Toward the end, they had an understanding of each other," said Pearlman. "They didn’t have to be with each other all the time and they had an appreciation for what they accomplished together, and that matters. But they were never friends. They were just two different people… it just wasn’t meant to be.”
Despite this, Shaq and Kobe succeeded: they won three straight championships as arguably the best one-two punch in NBA history.
As the years progressed, the superstars became closer in production. In 2000-01 they both scored 28 points per game and bulldozed the Philadelphia 76ers in the Finals, then completed the three-peat averaging 27 and 25, respectively, during the regular season, with O’Neal upping his points to 36 in the Finals and Bryant increasing to nearly 27.
Once Shaquille O’Neal left in 2004, the Lakers lacked a great big man for a long time. Pau Gasol was the second best player during the championship runs of 2008 and 2009, and he had help from Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom on the backline. But after LA failed to land a trade for Chris Paul in December 2011, it set back the team’s plans by several years. They picked up scraps, including an injured Dwight Howard in a bid to rebuild the inside-outside presence of the first three championships, but he was moved on quickly and spent most of the decade bouncing from team to team trying to get healthy.
Because the franchise was aimless for so many years, it paid Kobe Bryant a hefty contract for two final seasons before his body broke down and he retired after scoring 60 points during his last professional game. But the city never really moved on from him. Success still eluded the Lakers, and even when LeBron James arrived, there were rumours that Bryant would return.
James spent much of his first season in LA injured and evaluating the younger talent. For the 2019-20 season, the roster was completely different, but James had a new big man on campus. And with Anthony Davis, he had enough talent to reach the mountain top.
According to Lines.com, this year’s title is seen as invalid by 19 per cent of NBA fans, but when Bryant passed away in January, the season took on a whole new meaning. Nothing was going to stop the Lakers from winning it all.
While the history of the one-two punch in Los Angeles is difficult to live up to, Davis and James arguably slotted themselves into the top three conversation with this year’s championship, ahead of an ageing West-Chamberlain pairing. They will need to win a few more titles to compete for the hearts of Lakers fans ahead of Magic-Kareem and Shaq-Kobe, but it’s not out of the question by the end of James’ career.
He will be 36 next year, and looks like he could still play another four or five high quality seasons. And while Davis has, at times, been the secondary player - especially during the Finals - he is ready to become the leading jab for this combination. This one-two punch can still go the distance for a little while longer.
