The Los Angeles Lakers are the 2020 NBA champions after beating the Miami Heat in six games. In a season that had absolutely everything, the purple and gold could do the job and earned their 17th NBA championship. LeBron James led the Lakers to the title in a season that was expected to be more competitive seeing all the changes that happened around the league in free agency.
Well, James had an easy path to his fourth championship, helped by Anthony Davis as his wingman and a big supporting cast that knew when to appear to take this team to the next level. None of this could have happened without LeBron, but things could have been different for the Lakers if they listened to Jeff Van Gundy, who had one of the worst ideas in NBA history last season when the Lakers were struggling to get the results.
During a Celtics-Lakers game last year, Van Gundy dropped the idea that the Lakers should trade LeBron James, who was playing his first year with the Californians. Bron didn’t have the best first season with the Lakers, missing a couple of games due to injuries and only winning two more games than the prior year. Van Gundy said the Lakers could release some cap space if they traded LeBron, which would give them the chance to land another superstar like Kevin Durant or Kawhi Leonard.
“I’m not saying ‘you definitely trade him,’ I’m saying everything is on the table to get this team better,” Van Gundy said.
Good thing everybody knew that was a crazy idea and nobody listened to JVG. Instead, the Lakers made sure to surround LeBron with the best possible supporting cast, brought Anthony Davis to SoCal and the results are here; they just won the NBA championship. Imagine if they traded LeBron away after last season…
