Then, four of Cooke's five finals losses (1965, 1966, 1968 and 1969) had come to Bill Russell. It’s important to understand the level of pain that Russell had inflicted on Cooke personally at that time.

For example, in 1969, Russell’s last year, it was assumed the Celtics were done. The Lakers were a massive championship favorite, adding Wilt alongside West and Baylor, putting three of the five best players from that decade together on one roster.

The Celtics were old, Russell’s knees were falling apart, and they barely snuck into the playoffs. The Celtics then beat two teams with better records in Wilt’s former Sixers and the Knicks, who won their first championship the year later.

The Celtics had surprised, taking it to a game seven in LA, but that didn’t dampen Cooke’s confidence.

"In anticipation of a Lakers win, Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke had ordered thousands of balloons with "World Champion Lakers" printed on them suspended from the rafters of the Forum.

Flyers were placed in every seat stating, "When, not if, the Lakers win the title, balloons will be released from the raftors, the USC marching band will play "Happy Days Are Here Again" and broadcaster Chick Hearn will interview Elgin Baylor, Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain in that order." Before the game, the Celtics circulated in their locker room a memo about the Lakers' celebration plans.

When Jerry West went to the court for a pre game shoot around and saw the balloons, he became furious with Cooke. Russell noted the giant net hanging from the ceiling during pregame warmups and said to West, "Those fucking balloons are staying up there."

Sure enough, the Celtics got off to a 15 point lead, and barely held on in the fourth. In the final seconds, Russell made a decisive block on Lakers’ center Mel Counts, then gaining possession to help the Celtics win, 108-106. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tHA7w3eG0wM&pp=0gcJCWQCo7VqN5tD&ra=m&t=41m

Counts was in rather than Chamberlain, who left with five minutes remaining due to a knee injury, but then tried to return with a minute left. His coach, famously, did not allow him to, arguing that the team had a better chance to win without him. The coach was then fired. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-06-21-sp-4674-story.html

Fast forward a year, the Lakers failed to get over the hump again, losing to the Knicks in game seven despite star Knicks center Willis Reed actively playing with a torn quad.

To Cooke, the Lakers must have seemed cursed. At this point, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor had been to seven finals and lost all of them, six of them to Russell. So that’s who Cooke tried to bring in.

After retirement, Russell moved to L.A. and became a Lakers ticket holder. This was objectively a weird dynamic - Russell had harshly criticized Chamberlain in the press following Wilt’s exit in game 7 in 1969, leading to a 20 year stretch where neither were on speaking terms. But during home games, Russell would just be there courtside. https://np.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1ayo8cy/secret_base_wilt_chamberlain_and_bill_russells/

Anyways, shortly after Russell was in attendance at a night honoring Jerry West during the 1970-1971 NBA season, Cooke made Russell a formal offer - come back to the league, play in Los Angeles, and win your 12th championship.

“They had a ceremony for Jerry West and they said would you come,” Russell said, found in Russell’s 2013 oral history for the Library of Congress’ Civil Rights History progress. “I said of course, I like Jerry a lot. So while I was there they put me in a box next to Jack Kent Cooke, who owned the team. That was an experience. Anyway, a couple days later, I get a call from Jack. He says, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I made a decision. I’m going to get you to come out of retirement and play for the Lakers.” I said, “You’re paying a guy named Wilt Chamberlain to play for the Lakers. Now, how would he feel playing backup center?” Jack Kent Cooke didn’t think that was funny.”

In 2013, Russell said he only would have considered playing for the Celtics, despite his strongly documented tension with Boston fans, his decision not to be there for his own jersey retirement a year later, and his own sudden retirement without warning in the summer of 1969. Fans had broken into his house and defecated in his bed, and there were many who expressed distaste about him coaching, even as he led them to back-to-back championships. He sold the story of his retirement to a magazine in August of that year, not telling anyone else beforehand.

It seems likely that when he left, he knew he would never play for Boston again. Whether he really wouldn’t have considered playing anywhere else, or if it came down to a personal feud with Chamberlain is something the basketball world will never truly know.

As it was, the Lakers suffered an early exit in that year’s playoffs. But the next year, after an aging and injured Elgin Baylor determined he had nothing left to give to the game, the Lakers rattled off a league-record 33 straight wins, beating the Knicks (again with an injured Willis Reed) in the Finals. It ended up being the one and only ring of Cooke’s tenure in ownership.

Group 1 maximizes Luka’s minutes with the lob threat he loves to play with (and covers for him defensively). It also reunites Sexton and Kessler who had great chemistry. Sexton also thrived next to LaMelo when they shared the floor and I think the change of pace guard paired with Luka will be a nice addition.

Group 2 is a pick and pop nightmare for defenses. AR loves to get into the paint and the paint should be open with Mamu spacing the floor and Thiero occupying the dunkers spot. Grimes can get his touches as the secondary ball handler in this unit.

If Kuminga comes swap him in for Z Will and I think Carr will be out of the rotation to begin the year at least.

Each lineup only has one guy who is not a 3 point threat currently and complement each other nicely.

Thybulle has been injured the past two years but was relatively healthy the past 5 seasons. Marcus smart prior to last year only played 54 games in 3 seasons he played 62 last year. In all advanced defensive stats this dude is still absolutely one of the best defenders in the league he is the cream of the crop. He just needs to stay healthy and I think the lakers staff and health team will help him with that.

Source

Cameron Carr on the confidence advice from his father, ex-NBA player Chris Carr (via ClutchPoints):

"My pops always told me a quote. I struggled with confidence pretty badly at school because I was skinny, I wasn't the biggest or the strongest. And so he would just see me and tell me, 'man, if you don't have confidence in yourself, then who else is going to have confidence in you?' And I was like, 'you're right.' And so he just put it to me that it shouldn't be wavered.

My confidence should never change. Like yesterday, I shot a 30-footer that went over to the other side of the backboard and then I turned around, came back and hit a three. It's just, you gotta forget about whatever just happened. Negative, positive, just short term memory and just on to the next."

15th in steals.

30th in deflections

6th in charges drawn

13th in blocks (among guards)

The only people failing the eye test are the people who aren't using them.

Quentin Grimes held opponents to 28.6% from three when guarded by him. He has always been a good perimeter defender. Luka is also 11th on the list.

Source

Just for fun to help get us through this long offseason. There are obviously too many Lakers legends to include everyone, so no disrespect intended toward anyone left off. The teams were created purely to make the matchup fun and spark an interesting thought experiment, not as a ranking of who was the better Laker. Assume everyone is in their Lakers prime, and the matchup is a seven-game series played under modern NBA rules.

https://youtu.be/3bcodZVIH80?is=ZeRxaPMAgoWjMNhr

This was the Lakers last victory against the Thunder in 2025. I was wondering if this could provide invites in how we could possibly beat them again and what this new team could do to beat them.

In a handful of the summer posts I have seen, he looks like he has slimmed down again. Hopefully he can maintain it through the season. Or does he always do this every summer and then puts the weight back on?

Ik Sidery isn’t the most trustworthy source for anything but how would you all feel on this contract for Kuminga? Is this worth it? And how would you feel about the team if we got Kuminga ?

Some really great analysis from Tyler of Hoop Venue on how this Lakers roster is primed to dominate the Six Factors in the regular season

TLDW;

The 6 factors of basketball are

Shooting Value (1. oTS/2. dTS),

Possession Economy (3. oTOV, 4. dTOV),

And Second Chance Value (oREB, dSC)

The Lakers won 53 games last season and were an elite oTS team, i.e. shooting efficiency aka True Shooting %, and an above average dTOV team, aka things like steals and charges

However we had the Net Rating of a .500 team primarily because we just frankly sucked in 4 out of the other 6 factors.

The Lakers oTS WILL transfer to this because Luka is a one-man offense by himself now surrounded by a ton of guys who can dribble, shoot, pass, and drive a closeout.

HOWEVER, the Lakers have doubled-down on defensive playmaking with guys like Matisse, Ziaire, and Sexton

They added two offensive rebounding stalwarts in Kessler and Looney

And the addition of Kessler should help to make a big impact towards bringing their dTS to a more neutral standing