The last time the Los Angeles Lakers celebrated a championship was back in 2020 when the team overcame the hardest circumstances in NBA history to capture the franchise’s 17th title.
Since then, though, the Lakers have struggled to get back to the mountaintop, though there’s optimism that the team is heading in the right direction now that Luka Doncic is on the team. However, even with Doncic on board to lead the way, Los Angeles will find it even harder to win a championship as the Western Conference continues to grow more difficult each passing year.
Teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves are set to battle it out in the Western Conference Finals in the 2025 NBA Playoffs and are expected to be mainstays for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, there are budding young teams like the San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets who are expected to join the inner circle of contenders sooner than later.
The league’s new CBA has created the parity that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has sought for years. Following the conclusion of the playoffs, the NBA will have seven different champions in seven years for the first time in history, via StatMuse:
For the first time in history, there are 7 different champions in 7 NBA seasons.
Parity, baby. pic.twitter.com/wctqSoe3rE
— StatMuse (@statmuse) May 18, 2025
The last team to win back-to-back titles was the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018, but since then there has been an evening of the playing field. The Toronto Raptors, Lakers, Milwaukee Bucks, Warriors, Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics won the subsequent titles but this the 2025 championship will go to either the New York Knicks, Indiana Pacers, Thunder or Timberwolves.
Parity is hard to come in the NBA as it’s often considered the most predictable out of the professional sports leagues in the U.S. due to the seven-game series format. Oftentimes, the higher seed typically comes out of a series victorious but this year’s group features multiple lower seeds that took advantage of their matchups.
With the talent pool of players becoming deeper and deeper plus a CBA that restricts teams from keeping their championship cores together for long, it feels like this is the new trend the NBA is heading toward.
Tyrese Haliburton says it was super cool to get a shoutout from Lakers’ LeBron James
Tyrese Haliburton has the Pacers in good position to once again make the NBA Finals and the young star acknowledged it was super cool to get a shoutout from Lakers star LeBron James.
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