That 2020 title is a thin straw for Laker fans to grasp

It’s easy to forget that LeBron James has won an NBA title with the Lakers. It was the classic tree falling in the forest at midnight, a truth that resembled a rumor.

It happened in a Disney World gym most often used by AAU teenagers, with computer-generated faces in the “stands,” and it happened on Oct. 11. By then COVID-19 had separated us, removed the phenomenon of shared experience. The 2019-20 Lakers celebrated that night and then dissipated. There was no parade. Still hasn’t been.

The Lakers did not sign James and trade much of their youthful bloodstream for Anthony Davis with the intention of winning only one title. They had never been one-shot wonders. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson won five with the Lakers, as did Kobe Bryant, and Shaquille O’Neal won three.

But now the Lakers have won two games, tied with Houston for a league low. They have defined down success to an alarming extent; they were encouraged, for instance, by a home loss to Utah. They have traded themselves into a corner that isn’t big enough for large NBA men. No one is getting them out. This will be the ninth season in 11 that the Lakers miss the NBA playoffs, and the third in LeBron’s five. Unless they can sell their nostalgia to an impending free agent, their drive through the NBA desert will drone on.

Even if they’re bad enough and lucky enough to get into the Draft Lottery and win it, a process that Marc Stein calls “Brick for Vic,” they still won’t get a shot at Victor Wembanyama. New Orleans can enforce a swap of draft picks, as part of the Davis deal.

This brings the question: Is one solitary championship worth a decade of decadence? Especially if it happened in a place where no one can touch it or feel it?

Or is it more fulfilling to keep knock-knock-knocking on heaven’s door, year after year, with no guarantee of ultimate victory but, at the end, a deep well of respect throughout the NBA and your own fan base? Everyone knows how tough it is to attain consistency in the NBA. Everyone also knows it’s more difficult to build a team than buy one.

The easy answer to the first question is yes. You got James and Davis to do what they did in the bubble. You can also look at the Dodgers, who won a World Series 15 days after the Lakers’ championship, also in near-seclusion, also without a civic celebration. The Dodgers have not won a World Series since, an enormous frustration for franchise and city alike. The differece is, the Kershaw-Turner Dodgers played in two other Series before 2020 and have been a playoff team in the two years since. Young baseball fans in L.A. (yes, a possible oxymoron, but bear with me) have never known the Dodgers to be anything but outstanding.

And it’s true that the 1985 Chicago Bears still have their place in NFL folklore as possibly the best and most charismatic team in league history. The fact that their time came and went so quickly does not dissolve that. But fans of the Patriots and 49ers have enjoyed so many more Sundays.

Almost everything about these Lakers is a mockery of their own tradition. As Bob Ryan once wrote about the Celtics when they had temporarily lost their connection in the late 70s, “The only thing they stand for is the Anthem.” It’s fun to watch Austin Reeves, who snatches loose balls and rebounds when he seems overmatched and can inflame an arena when he gets in the open court, but he shouldn’t be starting for a good NBA team and, in fact, isn’t. Russell Westbrook is doing better now that he’s coming off the bench, but ideally you’d want a $47 million player who can actually play with the starters.

Look around the NBA and you see Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Jordan Clarkson, Alex Caruso, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Josh Hart, Ivica Zubac, Javale McGee and others. They were all Lakers. Some of them were sacrificed because James wanted to play with Davis, especialy after Davis joined James at Klutch Sports.. And there’s no scenario in which they all would be on the same Laker team. But they have become serviceable-to-very-good NBA players, and that’s no surprise who saw them break in with the Lakers. The energy and the discernment and the heart that the Lakers should be showing went out the door with them.

General manager Rob Pelinka knew, as did everyone else in the 21

3, 626 and 310 area codes, that the Lakers needed more shooting and did nothing to find it. Nearly every perimeter player in the NBA who isn’t a Laker can make an open 3-point shot. The Lakers have made 103 threes. Only Washington has made fewer, and every team in the league is shooting at least 30 percent from deep space except the Lakers (29.3).

At this writing the Lakers are 166-152 since they signed James. In the five seasons before he showed up, they won 30.7 percent of their games. No one envisioned that the Lakers would be .300 hitters, that such a thing would become the standard and a championship would be the aberration, but that’s where they are. As far as 2020 goes, don’t bother asking Dad if he was there to see it, because he wasn’t. The only proof that the Lakers ever walked the earth is on YouTube.

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