The problem with discrediting the Lakers' revival
Merit has nothing to do with free agency decisions of high-end NBA superstars. Stop pretending it does.
Good morning. Let’s basketball.
The Los Angeles Lakers, in one fell swoop this season, ended their franchise record six-year playoff drought and got to the NBA Finals, where they now sit two wins away from the title. This has stirred up the passions of fans and analysts who long lamented Lakers exceptionalism and loathe its apparent revival, and that backlash against new Lakers triumph has incited the pro-Lakers contingent to push back against accusations that luck, geography and market size are the reasons for the Lakers’ latest successes.
Basically, the battle is over whether the Lakers earned this triumph. The Athletic’s John Hollinger recently made the case that they had not. ($)
[The Lakers] are symbolic of the complete opposite reality: That a glamour franchise can screw up damn near everything and still basically come out of it okay.
The Lakers are here for one reason, and one reason only: Because LeBron James and Anthony Davis chose L.A. as their destination. I emphasize “L.A.” and not this franchise, because the Lakers didn’t have to do anything to lure them besides be located in Los Angeles and have the word “Lakers” emblazoned across their jerseys.
Hollinger goes on to argue that five teams — the Lakers, Clippers, Warriors, Heat and Nets — have hoarded all of the recent superstar free agents, and that those teams plus the Knicks represent an entirely different class of franchise compared to other 24 teams. He writes:
The Lakers are an amazingly instructive example. They neither ate their vegetables nor did their homework. Instead they spent five years eating Twinkies and playing video games in the attic. They averaged an amazing 57 losses a season for half a decade until the Chosen One chose them.
There’s a lot to unpack here. I’m going to focus on two elements.
Timing Is Everything
The first is how reliant this theory is on timing and, more specifically, the 2019 offseason. Before June 30, 2019, if you had included the Nets and Clippers in any conversation about franchises with unfair recruiting advantages, you would have been laughed out of the room. These teams had one strong free agency summer out of the last … what, the last 40? The Warriors had the same sort of turnaround a few years ago: first, landing Andre Iguodala (a big free agent, though not a superstar) in 2014 and then Kevin Durant in 2016. Golden State was a free agent dead zone in the years leading up to those victories.
Now look at those three franchises’ path to free agent coups. When they landed Durant, the Warriors had won a championship with a “homegrown” team led by a benevolent superstar in Steph Curry. Durant wanted to win titles for legacy reasons and attach himself more closely to Silicon Valley. He did both successfully. Did the Warriors “earn” Durant’s decision? Of course!
The Nets built an exciting, hard-working team with a good ~culture~ — Kyrie Irving and Durant had decided to partner up before picking the Nets, and cited the ~culture~ in making that move. Being in New York City certainly helped, too, especially since Durant had been tied to the Knicks for some time. (Keep in mind that Team Durant lambasted the Knicks’ ~culture~ in revealing why he didn’t seriously consider them.) Did the Nets earn it? If the Heat earned Jimmy Butler (as Hollinger later argues they did) then the Nets earned Kyrie and Durant.
The Clippers built an exciting, hard-working team with a good ~culture~ backed by one of the richest men on the planet. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are Southern California natives. Kawhi was interested in building his brand with New Balance but also getting a superstar teammate to compete for titles alongside. He tied to coax over Jimmy Butler (no dice) and ended up with PG-13. Did the Clippers earn it? By Hollinger’s definition, I’d say yes.
Hollinger makes the case that the Heat earned Butler’s presence by building a tough, hard-working team with a good ~culture~ — a team that just needed an alpha scorer and leader like Butler. I’m curious as to whether this theory would have supported that Miami earned LeBron and Bosh prior to 2010 — they were a perennial playoff team with Dwyane Wade, having fallen off after the 2006 title with late-peak Shaq. But Miami had made some dodgy moves in the aftermath and Heat Culture wasn’t really a thing back then. The lore of Heat Culture built up during the latter Heatles era and after.
Anyway, if this club of five franchises plus the Knicks has unfair advantages in superstar recruitment, yet two of the franchises (Clips and Nets) wouldn’t be anywhere near this list before the last offseason and another (Warriors) has recruited exactly one superstar free agent in its five-decade history in its current locale … isn’t this really just a list of the franchises currently en vogue among an exclusive class of superstars amid an era where superstars are moving around more frequently than ever before? Isn’t this based on a big ol’ dose of recency bias?
Further, the Lakers famously struck out REPEATEDLY on superstar free agency from roughly the moment of the vetoed Chris Paul trade to the LeBron signing. How do you square a thesis that the Lakers have an unearned superstar recruitment advantage when that advantage waxes and wanes with the moon phases? Did someone accidentally trip the Lakers Exceptionalism circuit breaker in 2011 and fail to reset it until 2018? Are we dealing with some more recency bias?
Further further, how do we figure in all of the superstar players who stay with their incumbent franchises in free agency despite financial advantages that are, shall we say, superfluous at the immense levels of wealth we’re talking about? James Harden re-signed with the Houston Rockets instead of going to free agency. James Harden is certainly a superstar the caliber of these other names. Harden in a way chose Houston by signing the contract extension. Does that count? If Giannis Antetokounmpo re-signs with the Milwaukee Bucks, as I hope he does if it makes him happy, do the Bucks get added to this list? Hell, if Giannis signs with the Toronto Raptors or Dallas Mavericks, they have to get added to the list, right?
Where’s the limit on this highly exclusive club whose contours can change on the whims of superstars?
Earning Success in a Reverse Standing Draft League
Here’s the other piece that really bugs me about the argument that the Lakers didn’t build the right way, that they lucked into success without having earned it.
What is earned success in a league that rewards the worst teams with first crack at the best young players?
Seriously. In a league built on superstar talent, the worst teams have the best odds and first crack at the most highly touted young players through the reverse-standings draft. This has influenced rebuilding strategies. Unearned luck via the NBA draft lottery and draft timing has generational impacts on franchises. You literally get better odds at landing a future superstar by losing as many games as possible.
If the Sixers, for example, have a strong comeback season and land a major 2021 free agent through some salary cap mysticism, is that earned success? After all, they did build through the draft over several years. They had to strip the franchise to the studs, tanking so notably that the NBA felt compelled to step in. But they got a strong talent base out of it and played entirely by the rules. If the Joel Embiid-Ben Simmons foundation with Doc Rivers at the helm provides a platform a major free agent like Bradley Beal or Kawhi or Victor Oladipo can vibe with, does that sum up to earned success? What’s the marker there?
Here’s my conclusion: none of this has anything to do with anyone earning or not earning, deserving or not deserving success. High-end NBA free agent recruiting isn’t the real world, and we shouldn’t pretend it reflects normal concepts of merit, of morality, of justice. It’s highly particular to a moment and the whims of 20- and 30-something millionaires. A statistician would argue that the n of high-end free agents under current rules is too low to make real assessments of what’s happening.
If it makes you feel better to discount the Lakers’ success — oh Lord don’t I know that discounting the Lakers’ success can feel real good sometimes — do it. But trying to assign merit to championships and morality of fandom choices isn’t something to build a theory of the NBA around.
Photo by Getty Images Sport
Schedule
Storm vs. Aces, Game 3, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN (SEA leads 2-0) — POTENTIAL CLOSE-OUT GAME!
Lakers vs. Heat, Game 4, 9 p.m. ET, ABC (LAL leads 2-1)
Links
Bam Adebayo has been upgraded to questionable for Game 4. The plot thickens.
Five players named NBA Cares Community Assist Award winners: Harrison Barnes, Jaylen Brown, George Hill, Chris Paul and Dwight Powell. Full write-ups at that link. I will always root for these guys.
Marcus Thompson’s ode to Jimmy Butler in The Athletic. A must-read. ($)
Also in The Athletic, CJ Moore with an oral history of Jimmy Butler’s college days. ($)
Martenzie Johnson talks to Shane Battier about breaking through as a Black former player on the analytics side of a franchise.
Excellent John Schuhmann film breakdown of Miami’s success in Game 3.
Chris Herring on the Jimmy vs. LeBron battle.
Mechelle Voepel on Sue Bird’s impact for the Storm.
Holly Rowe on being the only member of the media in the WNBA bubble.
Jonathan Tjarks on Anthony Davis taking the foot off of the gas up 2-0.
Isaiah Thomas is making a comeback attempt after a hip resurfacing surgery.
I was not too interested in the Travis Scott McDonald’s collab but a J. Balvin value meal? I’ll allow it.
Speaking of food, this inside look at an independent chef working in the NBA bubble serving up southern and Caribbean comfort food is fascinating.
Be excellent to each other.