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Lakers won't be losing any key ingredients
By Jeffrey Denberg
Special to ESPN.com
PHILADELPHIA -- So now, Phil Jackson is sitting pretty. Eight titles down, how many more to go?
On the way to his eighth title, he finally won a fifth game after taking a 3-1 series lead in the NBA Finals for the first time in his last four tries.
|  | | With Kobe Bryant, left, and Phil Jackson, the Lakers will be favored to win it all again. |
The 1993 Bulls lost at home to Phoenix, the '96 Bulls lost at Seattle and the '98 Bulls lost at home to Utah. Last season, the Lakers lost Game 5 at Indiana.
In a press conference Thursday and again Friday, Jackson used the phrase "in the unlikely but fortunate event" when discussing a possible series-ending victory in Game 5. He was that spooked by history.
So, with a 108-96 victory over Philadelphia, that's done. The Lakers have gone back-to-back and Jackson is very comfortably looking at more.
"How many championships did Red (Auerbach) win?" he wanted to know.
The answer is nine.
"Someone said 10 the other day and I was concerned I'd have to stay in this game longer than that. ... To be at the same level, I've been in the right spot and have been fortunate to have players who put me in this position."
He was talking about Shaquille O'Neal, 29, and saying, "Shaq's got more in him."
Anyone who thinks Shaq and the Lakers can't do it again next season and, maybe, the next, is dreaming. The competition is thinning out.
"The first championship was just to get the monkey off my back," Shaq said late Friday night. "Now the ones that I get from now on will just be to try to stamp my name in history, as far as for myself, as far as for whatever team I'm on."
"I'm happy," he said. "But I'm also greedy and I'm not done. So I will take a week off, start working out again, come back leaner and meaner and try to get another one next year."
Who remembers when Shaq cared more about making movies and rap albums? Raise your hand.
The Lakers look very good to anyone who comes up against them. They have five free agents -- Horace Grant, Ron Harper, Tyronn Lue, Mike Penberthy and J.R. Rider. None is critical to their future. Robert Horry, who has $10.6 million due over the next two years, has talked about opting out so he can stay in Houston with a daughter who suffers from a terrible birth defect. But Horry recently indicated he will return.
Grant ($7.8 million) could come back at a reduced rate, but the Lakers can do without him. Jackson said Harper has talked of returning for another season, but he also said he and general manager Mitch Kupchak want to add young legs to the backcourt. So, there might be no place for Harper.
The Lakers also could get Mitch Richmond in their laps for the $1 million minimum. Michael Jordan is going to buy Richmond out at $10 million each of the next two seasons. Richmond could step in and add 10 points a game to the Lakers' offense without the slightest intrusion.
The team can also cash the $4.5 million middle class exception and get a competent big man to play alongside or spell Shaq.
Who's going to stop them? Portland? No. Bob Whitsitt over-reached and screwed up this team. With an $87 million payroll, the Blazers will pay close to $30 million in tax and have a team of angry under-achieving older players to show for it. First, Whitsitt needs a coach.
Sacramento is going to lose Chris Webber. It's hard to improve with that. Even if Webber returns the Kings have been slapped silly by the Lakers.
The Spurs were totally embarrassed in the West finals, but with Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Derek Anderson and an improving Antonio Daniels, they might be the best team in the West to take a run.
That said, Dallas is intriguing, especially if Don Nelson can get inside O'Neal's head with the Hack-a-Shaq defense. But the Mavericks have to win a second-round playoff series before anyone can take them seriously.
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So only the Lakers can stop the Lakers. Only a serious injury to Shaquille O'Neal or Kobe Bryant, only another rift between the two. |
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No team in the East can threaten the Lakers. The 76ers had to work so hard to get to the championship round they were a dead team walking after playing an emotional first game.
So only the Lakers can stop the Lakers. Only a serious injury to O'Neal or Kobe Bryant, only another rift between the two, but Bryant knows he is on the spot after his team won 23 of its last 24 games, including 15 of 16 in the playoffs. If he tries to challenge O'Neal for leadership on this team he would be held to ridicule and deservedly.
"It's a thing of the past," he said. "Next year, when people see us talking aggressively, it's not gonna be a thing of the past. Someone's gonna blow it out of proportion until we win another championship and it's gonna happen again. It's a cycle. It's gonna happen like that. We'll do our best to try to keep a team effort, keep a community. Hopefully, we won't have to go through what we went through this year, and I don't think we will."
Bryant, all of 22, said he has repaired relationships since the days last winter when it seemed the Lakers would dissolve in squabbling.
"I think there's definitely a stronger bond (with Shaq and others). This year we went through so much. Not only collectively as a unit, but I think everybody individually in their separate families or whatever they go through went through so much. To be able to pull it all together now and to be able to play the way that we're playing, I definitely think there's a strong bond there. It's like a brotherhood type of feel that we have. I love these guys. I do. I have so much respect for them."
He noted, "It's always difficult to defend, you know. But hopefully next season it will just be about execution and nothing more."
Then again, sitting around, waiting for a Lakers implosion, that might be all the fun there is for people who want to see this team lose.
Jeffrey Denberg, who covers the NBA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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