The “Showtime” Los Angeles Lakers teams of the 1980s were some of the best teams of all-time. Led by Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy they won five NBA Championships in a nine-year span.
They earned the nickname Showtime by playing an up-tempo, flashy style and getting out on the fastbreak often, with Johnson finding Worthy on the wing for countless easy dunks.
While many of today’s NBA players were not yet born when the Showtime Lakers were dominating the league, one current player who has watched and appreciates them is Kevin Durant, as he picked them as the one team that he would’ve liked to play with.
Durant said that if he played on the Showtime Lakers then Worthy could’ve moved to power forward to accommodate Durant. He also said that he could’ve replaced Worthy, which led to Worthy saying that notion is ludicrous.
Durant’s comments on The Bill Simmons podcast were taken a bit out of context as it seemed as if he were taking a shot at Worthy when instead he was just expressing that he wanted to play with Johnson.
The 2017-18 Lakers take on Durant and the Golden State Warriors for the first time on Wednesday, Nov. 29 at Staples Center and Worthy will surely be watching the defending champs, who are the closest thing the Worthy’s Showtime Lakers that the NBA has seen in a long time.