The 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers were a special group that went on to win the title and the fanbase often looks back fondly to the good old days. An account on X recently posted a clip from that season of Jared Dudley drilling a three-pointer at the buzzer against the Brooklyn Nets and it got a reaction out of LeBron James.
THIS WAS PEAK pic.twitter.com/TdkDWpjWil
— Lakers Lead (@LakersLead) September 14, 2024
When a fan replied to this clip by stating that they miss these days, LeBron said that he does too.
“I do too.”
I DO TOO 😭
— LeBron James (@KingJames) September 14, 2024
I would miss those days too if I was in LeBron’s shoes. The Lakers were ever so good that season. They beat the Nets that night to improve to 36-9 on the campaign to further strengthen their grip on the top seed in the Western Conference.
The Lakers would end the season at the top of the pile in the West with a 52-19 record and then blew away the competition in the playoffs. They beat the Portland Trail Blazers, Houston Rockets, and Denver Nuggets in five games each and then dispatched the Miami Heat in six games in the NBA Finals.
It was LeBron’s fourth title and the Lakers’ 17th. They were at the top of the basketball world and you’d have thought at the time that they had a good chance of staying there. That didn’t prove to be the case, though, as this group didn’t stay together for much longer.
The Lakers let go some role players in the offseason and a year later, completely shook up the roster by trading for Russell Westbrook. The decision to trade for Westbrook will go down as one of the worst ever and you wonder how differently the last few years might have panned out if the Lakers hadn’t gone that route.
Dwight Howard Criticized Rob Pelinka For Breaking Up The 2019-20 Lakers
LeBron is far from the only player on that team who misses it. Dwight Howard, Quinn Cook, and DeMarcus Cousins were angry that the 2019-20 Lakers were broken up. Howard later singled out Lakers GM Rob Pelinka for criticism.
“After we won, they started tweaking the roster. I’mma tell you who it was— Rob Pelinka, man. God, Rob, why did you do that to us, man? Rob, come on, man. I still love you, Rob, but dang, man. We had the squad, bro. Even if we ran it back, we could have run it back. We would have been healthier for the next year.”
I don’t believe Pelinka made any major mistakes in the 2020 offseason, but he did in the next one. After injuries derailed the Lakers’ 2020-21 campaign, the front office somewhat pushed the panic button in the offseason.
They traded for Westbrook and lost great pieces like Kyle Kuzma, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in the process. The Lakers also let Alex Caruso leave in free agency and with that, so many of the key role players from that 2019-20 team were gone.
By the time the 2022 offseason came around, LeBron and Anthony Davis were the only players still on the Lakers from that title-winning squad. In just two years, the team had been dismantled, which was a shame.
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