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Kings weren't better than the '03 Spurs. Unless you mean the '02 Kings?
LOL that choke. Right in line with how Phil Jackson mind ed them in that game in Portland in February or March when the Blazers and Lakers had the same record. LOL LA going on to win 67 while Portland ended up wtih 58 or something thanks to the nose-dive after that loss.2000 Blazers were close to completing a comeback from a 3-1 deficit, until they missed 15 straight shots in the 4th quarter of Game 7. And yet Blazers fans continue to complain that they got screwed by the refs.
Kings weren't better than the '03 Spurs. Unless you mean the '02 Kings?
edit: wrong thread
I apologize for sticking up for the Lakers (but, eh, their fans aren't here anyways due to the Nash Reunion Choke) but there's just no way someone can convince me that the 2002 Kings > 2002 Lakers. Considering that the East was crap that year, the 2002 WCF was basically the NBA Finals. So to say the Kings > Lakers, you have to say the Kings were championship material. Based on NBA history, they just weren't. Plain and simple. No matter how much we want to romanticize the 2002 Kings because they were unceremoniously bent over by the refs, it's just not factual to say that was a championship caliber team based on what history tells us about championship caliber teams.
In the NBA, for the last 30+ years, the NBA champion has either a legendary defense or a clutch MVP type player at or near his prime. Go down the line and it holds true:
2012 - LeBron
2011 - Dirk
2010 - Gasol/Kobe
2009 - Gasol/Kobe
2008 - Defense
2007 - TD
2006 - Wade
2005 - TD
2004 - Defense
2003 - TD
2002 - Shaq/Kobe
2001 - Shaq/Kobe
2000 - Shaq/Kobe
1999 - TD
1998 - MJ
1997 - MJ
1996 - MJ
1995 - Drexler/Hakeem
1994 - Defense/Hakeem
1993 - MJ
1992 - MJ
1991 - MJ
1990 - Defense
1989 - Defense
1988 - Magic/etc
1987 - Magic/etc
1986 - Bird/etc
1985 - Magic/etc
1984 - Bird/etc
1983 - Malone/etc
1982 - Magic/etc
1981 - Bird/etc
1980 - Kareem/etc
1979 - Defense
The 2002 Kings were pretty good on defense but nowhere near as good defensively as the teams who won a championship based on their defense. Those in the above list are really some of the best defensive teams ever. 2004 Pistons, Bad Boy Pistons, 2008 Celtics, 1979 Sonics, etc.
The 2002 Lakers fit right into that mix. Shaq (or TD, no homer) was the best player in the league. Kobe, too, was top ten. Factor in that he could play unlimited minutes back then and he might have been top 5. Those Lakers also led the league in field goal percentage defense, so they were pretty damn good on defense as well. Toss in Phil Jackson at his prime (if coaches have prime, that was his) and you have all the makings of a championship team. Role players, depth, number of weapons, team play, blah blah ... none of that really matters if you look at the last 33 champions.
So, yeah, the Kings don't fit as the defensive juggernaut. And their best player was ... who ... Chris Webber? Mister 43% shooting in the fourth quarter during that playoff run? Dude was pretty damn good ... until the fourth quarter hit and all he had in his arsenal was that ugly hook shot. Good player -- great at times -- but no way in he was at the same level as any of the players above.
In the playoffs, the Kings had two players with PERs above 17 -- Webber at 22 and Bibby at 18.2. That would be extremely weak for a championship team. I'd bet that would have been historically weak, tbh.
Looking closer at those Kings, they beat a decrepit Jazz team featuring Malone and Stockton at damn near 40 years old by a grand total of eight points in the first round. Eight points for the whole series. That was Stockton's last year and Malone's second to last year. So it's not like the Kings came rolling into the Lakers series ... they narrowly made it out of the first round against probably the oldest team in NBA history.
Play that series 100 times and the Kings maybe win a handful of times, to be completely honest. Maybe just once. Hey, give the Kings credit, it almost happened. It probably should have happened. But in an NBA playoff series, give me the team with the two best players on the court, the team with the best player on the court in his prime, the team with the best coach of all-time in his prime and I don't really DGAF about the role players. You can have the team that was above average on defense (but probably not better than Team A) that had "good depth", "played as a team", "knew their roles" and whatever other intangibles you want to mix in.
I apologize in advance. Going to go take a shower. BRB.
finley nash dirk and bradley
One team that I thought, if not for one mistake, would have made the finals and given the Bulls a real run for their money was the '89-'90 Spurs. Super Young and Talented and had that Great Blazer Team beat. '89 Spurs team was a super good defense team led by DRob who had at least 5 triple double that included +10Blocks. Drob was a freak.
i doubt there was any force in that push off by jordan, it take more than one hand to push off a marshmellow
The Barkley/KJ/Majerle wound will never heal.
suns were never built to win a le imho. Utah were very close and they could've done it twice had jordan extended his baseball career a bit longer tbh. webber's kings were stacked but that team looked more like the mavs of mid 00s, deep and stacked but lacking in defensive quality.
Only Finals I ever rooted against Jordan; was a way bigger Barkley fan, and liked KJ and Dumas too.
I think LJ's underrating the Kings. They ran one of the most beautiful offenses I have ever seen with Divac and Webber passing out of the high post. It wasn't this gimmick run down the floor and chuck some crap; they could play in the halfcourt and thus win in the playoffs. If you ask me if they'd beat the 2000 or the 2001 Lakers, I'd say no chance in . But the 02 Lakers didn't look hungry at all and as crazy as this sounds to say about a 4-1 series, LA barely escaped with wins in 3 of those games against the Spurs (who just choked due to having Steve Smith instead of Manu Ginobili, Terry Porter on his last legs, and Tony Parker back when he looked like he weighed about 150).
timvp, what the does it matter if the '02 Kings weren't the conventional championship team? Last time I checked, neither were the '04 Pistons or the '11 Mavericks. Did they choke? Absolutely, but that doesn't absolve the refs (league) of screwing them, either. They were absolutely better than the Lakers that year and deserved to win that series.
Best to never win it, is between them and the '97 and '98 Jazz, though you're underrating the Kings depth of talent and overrating the Jazz'. The Jazz didn't have a single shot creator on the wings and their only perimeter shot creator in general was an old, pass first PG. They also had a gaping hole in the middle. Malone was a top three player at the time, but they were as good as they were in large part for the same reason the Spurs are: because they had a bunch of veterans who simply knew how to play and they were well coached.
The 84-85 Celtics were crazy good, as evidenced by the Memorial Day Massacre, but the Lakers weren't gonna be denied.
You're not better than your opponent when you (in your words) absolutely choked, PERIOD.
Hey, the 2004 Lakers were the better team than the Pistons, but they choked!
Aesthetically-pleasing, yes. Effective? Yeah, pretty much ... but nothing historic. The coasting Lakers had better offensive numbers during that regular season. So if the Lakers > Kings in Sac's best area, I still fail to see how Kings > Lakers.
As for halfcourt, those Kings played at the fastest pace in the league. They were at their best running. I don't think their halfcourt offense was anything too special. It looked great -- especially compared to most NBA offenses at that time -- but did it score at a spectacular rate? Nah, it just didn't.
Re-read my post. Both of those teams you mentioned fit into the conventional championship mold. The Kings didn't. Were they special enough to be a candidate to break the mold? I don't see how. Two decidedly above average players in the playoffs with good but not elite offense and defense? There were 20+ teams in the last 30 years that had a better case of fitting the championship mold than that Kings team.
You really think so? That was a legitimate 5 game sweep.
You're not better than your opponent when you (in your words) absolutely choked, PERIOD.
Hey, the 2004 Lakers were the better team than the Pistons, but they choked!
Crowning the Kings wouldn't felt right to the NBA (David Stern) and he had his way.
i know this opinion isnt popular but that suns team was GREAT to watch. highest octane high flying+prime nash.
LOL horry hipcheck.
I was checking some stat and during 2001-2002, Webber was arguably better than Kobe both during RS and POs. Dude was shooting .50 averaging 24 pts, 10 reb, 5 assists, 1.5 blks his PER POs was at 22 while kobe was "coasting at .47 FG in RS, .43 in POs with 6 reb, 5 assists and 26 pts, POs PER 20.5. So the Lakers didn't had the two best players, Shaq was the best player of the serie then I'd consider Webber.
On top of that, unless I don't know how to read numbers (which is highly possible), kings was a better offensive team than the lakers (second in the league in total points and second in FG%, lakers being 3rd and 6 in the league in FG% despite >.50 Shaq). Interestingly enough kings were also the best rebounding team during the season.
Can't agree on timvp here. Those players wee branded great because of the championship. If the kings won in 02, webber would be on the Sam conversation as dirk and gasol.
Duncan want overly clutch in 05 and 07, neither was Kobe in 09/10, certainly not heads and shoulders above 02 webber.
Since they were robbed of theirs, I would put these guys on top.
That Howard Eisley three getting waived off was one of the worst calls I've ever seen. It wasn't even close.
Had the Kings won, it would have gave legitimacy to the D'Antoni Offense. Sure there were alot of fans (GS, Indy, Pho, Dal) and people who thought they could build off of that style, but with one of the teams winning a ring, I think the owners would have had more patience and more thinking to change over. Especially with so much 'start from scratch' teams in the 'Spurs/Lakers/Pistons' era.
In the playoffs there's an inevitable amount of random stuff completely out of a team's control that happens, and teams like the 2002 Kings/2007 Suns always use that random stuff as an excuse rather than doing what they can to capitalize on what's in their control. Because of this, people think it's mere coincidence and bad luck that teams built like the 2002 Kings/2007 Suns experience misfortune so you hear hypotheticals like, "If not for blah blah blah they would have won!" but no one ever talks about the stuff those teams could have done but didn't. Both the 2002 Kings and 2007 Suns lost two games on their own court in their series against the Lakers and Spurs respectively, which is something championship teams simply don't do. In both instances, each team started with HCA and turned each series into an uphill battle by losing game 1. The refs always give the team at home some calls. Game 6 of the 2002 WCF was a lot worse than usual ref wise, as was game 3 of the 2007 WCSF to a lesser extent, but both the Suns and Kings ed up by putting themselves in a position where they needed to win 2 road games against a seasoned team that'd won multiple championships recently.
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