“Only championship they won since Phil left doesn’t count” - George Karl labels Lakers “unstable” post-Phil Jackson era
The LA Lakers recently announced the firing of Darvin Ham after the team was booted out of the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets in five games. They did a little better this year after getting the broom in the 2023 Western Conference Finals. LA had double-digit leads in four of those games but wilted in crunch time to allow the defending champs to move on to the second round.
GM Rob Pelinka will again search the offseason for Ham’s replacement. The team also dismissed the rest of the coaching staff, including the highly-touted Phil Handy who worked with LeBron James before. With James’ championship window dwindling by the year, LA is hoping it can get a new bench leader who could guide the team to another title.
Hall of Fame coach George Karl had this to say about how the Lakers have been doing over the past decade:
“The Lakers will be more successful going fwd when they acknowledge the only championship they won since Phil left doesn’t count and they’ve been unstable for 15 years.”
Phil Jackson helped the team to six championships in two stints. He was at the helm when Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant won a three-peat from 2000 to 2002. Jackson left and was replaced by Rudy Tomjanovich before Frank Hamblen took over.
Jackson returned in 2005 and again led the Lakers to two more championships behind the Bryant and Pau Gasol tandem. Five coaches manned the sidelines from 2011 until 2019 before Frank Vogel arrived. Vogel was not a splashy hiring but he helped LeBron James and Anthony Davis lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy in 2020.
To this day, many are still contending that the championship should not have counted, considering the never-before-seen situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The NBA held a “Bubble Tournament” in Florida to finish the season. A few are saying that an asterisk should be placed beside that title, something George Karl is a proponent of.
The LA Lakers haven’t been total failures with LeBron James around
After winning the Larry O’Brien Trophy in 2020, the LA Lakers looked ready for a title bid. However, LeBron James never recovered from a late-season ankle injury. To make matters worse, Anthony Davis suffered a groin injury in Game 5 against the Phoenix Suns. AD tried to play through it in Game 6 but was sidelined after roughly over five minutes of action.
If they had been healthy, the outcome might have been different. LA had a 2-1 series lead before all the injuries caught up with them. George Karl might have considered that.
Karl was right about the 2021-22 season, though. The team’s front office blew up the core of the 2020 championship for former Washington Wizards superstar Russell Westbrook. Rob Pelinka also added Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard, former stars on their last legs. They were a disaster from the get-go and were the NBA’s favorite punchline.
Over the past two seasons, the LA Lakers were eliminated by the Denver Nuggets. Although the defending champs have had their number, they were never overwhelmed. Despite the 1-8 record during the past two playoffs against the Nuggets, LA had been more than competitive in those games.