The Los Angeles Lakers were worthy champions in the bubble to end the 2021 season.
LeBron James and Anthony Davis will do that for any team. But in a strange halted season, the Lakers withstood the disruption and persevered through the bubble to win the title. They were the favorites when the season went on hiatus — defeating the LA Clippers and Milwaukee Bucks in consecutive games just before the season stopped — and they left as champions.
Everyone is certainly a bit tired of the Lakers winning titles. Things always seem to come easy for that franchise. They fall down and get stuck in a hole, but seeming every superstar player still wants to don the purple and gold.
LeBron James essentially handpicked the franchise after his championship turn in his hometown had run its course.
As they entered the season, they had every belief they could repeat as champions. They were expected to repeat as champions. The Lakers were everyone’s pick to win the title. Certainly, this would be one of the better teams in the league.
And they were for most of the season. The Lakers were a terrifying defense, leading the league in defensive rating. They were set to defend their title and be a menace again.
But that is not how things ended up. The Lakers suffered two crushing injuries to their two best players and limped to the end of the season. They finished as one of the strongest 7-seeds in NBA history and ultimately bowed out to the eventual Western Conference champion Phoenix Suns in the first round.
The Orlando Magic had a season full of injuries. It was bad luck. And the thing is every team needs good injury luck to succeed in the marathon of the NBA.
What the Lakers showed this year was that no team — even championship contenders — is immune to bad injury luck. And no matter how much a team might try to prepare or plan for injuries. A lot of it is random.
Injuries can turn a season on its head and completely change what a team can accomplish.
The Lakers were 21-7 and cruising to the playoffs when tragedy first struck them.
Anthony Davis suffered an injury on Feb. 14 that would see him out for two months. LeBron James would also suffer an injury in late March, forcing him to miss all but four games before the end of the regular season.
He still showed up in time to hit the big shot to defeat the Golden State Warriors in the Play-In Tournament.
The Lakers finished the season at 42-30, going 21-13 to close the season. With James and Davis out of the lineup, the Lakers went 7-9 despite still having the fourth-best defense in the league during that month. That was enough in the competitive Western Conference to send the team tumbling down the standings.
The margins can be that thin between success and struggle even for title-contending teams.
Injuries were a reality for every team in the NBA this season. And it depressed results for several teams. As Warriors coach Steve Kerr put it, this season was about survival.
The Orlando Magic understood injuries better than any team this season. They lost more games to injury than any team in the league by a healthy margin. While Orlando was not competing for championships this year, the team ended up pulling the plug on the whole franchise as it drifted toward the bottom.
Injuries defined a lot of this season.
Los Angeles Lakers
James himself blamed the league and players for accepting the rushed season for the increase in injuries. James was a proponent for delaying the season’s start to January rather than rushing for Christmas.
It gave the Lakers the shortest offseason in major American professional sports history.
Still, everyone has to push forward anyway. Injuries are a part of every season and there is no avoiding them. And there are no asterisks for winning a title because a perceived favorite had some injuries.
The 1986 Boston Celtics are still considered one of the greatest teams of all time despite facing the Houston Rockets in the NBA Finals instead of the Los Angeles Lakers. That season, both Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were nursing injuries during the playoffs as they fell in the Western Conference Finals.
The 2009 Magic took advantage of Kevin Garnett’s injury to defeat the Celtics in the second round and make their way to the Finals.
Injuries affect seeding too but do not always change the result. Everyone has to manage whatever path fate gives them.
The Boston Celtics in 2010 chose to rest and preserve Garnett and fell to the 4-seed behind the Atlanta Hawks to be ready for the playoffs. The Rockets in 1995 had a lot of injuries that pushed them down to the 6-seed. They went on to win the title because. . . Magic fans know the rest.
Orlando Magic
Injuries are always part of the story when it comes the NBA season. There is no avoiding them.
Some injuries reshape the league — Kawhi Leonard’s partially torn ACL will likely keep him out all of next season and significantly change the LA Clippers’ outlook in the same way Jamal Murray’s absence will change the Denver Nuggets’ hopes for next season.
The Magic were already dealt a bad hand this season as they had to wait out Jonathan Isaac’s torn ACL. That got worse when Markelle Fultz tore his ACL eight games into the season. But that is what happens in a NBA season. Some teams will always face injury calamity.
The team has to have some depth and some flexibility to change and adjust as injuries occur. They have to find a way to hold the ship steady.
The Lakers were able to do that without their two best players and still make the playoffs. But with the stakes they were playing with the quality of players they have and a title to defend, it felt kind of empty for them.
But it just shows how every team is always on the edge. And every team could easily tip over and miss their mark because of something wholly out of their control.
Injury luck is a key factor to every title run. The Bucks’ title hopes could have been derailed with a significant injury to Giannis Antetokounmpo. They were fortunate his hyperextended knee was nothing more than that.
The Magic in 2019 got some extreme injury luck really missing only Mohamed Bamba for a significant time. It made their push to the 2020 playoffs all the more impressive with the injuries they faced — including Isaac’s first knee injury.
Teams always have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst in the marathon of the NBA season. There will inevitably be some stretch of the season where the team will be shorthanded. Every team just has to hope it has the depth to withstand it.
The Magic were such a carefully composed team that they found it difficult to sustain all the injuries they did. Especially in a season that never gave them a breath.
The Lakers too found this difficult in losing their two best players for a month. That was enough to derail their title hopes. There was not enough time for James and Davis to ramp themselves back up for the playoffs and they bowed out quickly.
In the end, the Lakers never got the chance to defend their title. Injuries took it away from them.
Bad luck is a factor for everyone.