When Kobe Bryant decided to hang it up in 2016, the Los Angeles Lakers went through a rough patch as they navigated trying to find their next star. After having six straight losing seasons being well below .500, LeBron James took a chance on Jeanie Buss and company by signing with L.A. in 2018.
Every franchise goes through losing and rebuilds, even an illustrious franchise with 17 championships. The 2019-20 season was the first time the Lakers had been championship contenders in a decade.
After navigating through Bryant’s untimely passing and a global pandemic, winning a title through those challenges would have definitely been a memorable one. Thankfully, L.A. would come through and win a championship inside the Orland bubble.
However, they unfortunately did not get a traditional parade due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Now four years removed from beating the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals, Buss is not ruling out giving the 2020 Lakers their parade, via Above The Rim with DH 12:
“Well don’t rule it out. Maybe someday. Someday something will make sense. So, I’ll never close the door 100%. Something will make sense. We’ll see. You guys deserved it.”
While it is nice to possibly get a fun parade to commemorate a dominant season from the Lakers, that moment has come and gone, and it seems too late to celebrate something that happened four years ago.
For the purple and gold, it is about winning more championships, especially with their rival Boston Celtics getting their 18th title this past season. The only players from the 2019-20 roster that are still on the Lakers roster are LeBron James and Anthony Davis with everyone else moving on to other teams or retirement.
Perhaps there is another way to go about commemorating that roster outside of the parade, like a reunion at a Lakers home game sometime down the road. Fans will never forget that 2020 team given how dominant they were and set the blueprint on how to win a championship by having two stars and 3-and-D players.
Given how successful the Lakers are as an organization, it is hard to pick the most impressive title-winning teams seeing how there are 17 of them. But that 2020 team experienced something no other championship team has given the taxing situations they went through mentally and physically, and for that they will always be appreciated.
Jeanie Buss & Dwight Howard get to the bottom of 2020 free agency
After winning a championship, most teams tend to run it back with the same roster until they doesn’t win anymore.
That wasn’t the case for the 2020 Lakers though as Dwight Howard was among the key names who left during the ensuing free agency, which came with some controversy.
At first, Howard announced he would be returning to the Lakers before minutes later inking a deal with the Philadelphia 76ers instead.
Howard and Lakers governor Jeanie Buss recently got to the bottom of what truly happened behind his departure in L.A. and it appears to have been a miscommunication.
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