The Lakers’ Record-Tying Title Is a Testament to Their Inevitability

The Lakers’ Record-Tying Title Is a Testament to Their Inevitability https://t.co/oZyWgHWC5H via @ringer

— LakerTom (@LakerTom) October 12, 2020

I suspect that the Lakers will soon move into sole possession of first place on the all-time title leaderboard and stay there. My reasoning is simple: The NBA’s modern era is defined by the biggest stars, and those stars often want to play for the Lakers. The Lakers’ three-peat in the early 2000s happened because Shaq signed with L.A. as a free agent. (Shaq later signed in Boston too, but on the veteran minimum contract after finishing dismal stints with the Phoenix Suns and Cleveland Cavaliers.) In 2018, the Lakers signed LeBron, and they traded for Davis a year later with the expectation that AD will lead them to championships after LeBron’s career wanes. (It will eventually wane, right?) I guess the Lakers would be in trouble if Davis doesn’t re-sign, especially given how much they gave up to get him. I mean, Lakers fans haven’t figured out what number to give Giannis on his Photoshopped Lakers jerseys. Folks, no. 34 is retired!

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And then there are the Lakers, a perpetual homing beacon for the sport’s best players. The power of the Lakers isn’t that they’re always good, or that they’ll land every free agent. It’s that they don’t need to play the same game as everybody else. Everybody else needs to be right all the time to win; the Lakers just need an occasional signature. Any other team that consistently based its strategy around “just hoping the best player in the world will sign with us in free agency” is doomed. (Trust me, I’m a Knicks fan.) But the Lakers know they have a better shot than anybody else. It’s just easier for the Lakers to pop back up. The Lakers are always looming as a championship contender, even if they’re not far removed from breaking the bank for Timofey Mozgov.

This is the premise of Lakers Exceptionalism, the idea that the Lakers have a fundamental advantage over everybody else. To believe in Lakers Exceptionalism is not exactly a compliment to the Lakers. It has nothing to do with moral or intellectual superiority. It merely means that even when their hull is full of holes, they are unsinkable. For fans of the other 29 teams, the Lakers are evidence that sometimes supervillains are the ones who get to be invincible. For fans of the Lakers, all that matters is that they’re no. 1—and as soon as they get championship no. 18, they officially will be.