The 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers had to overcome tragedy and adversity en route to winning their NBA title.<\/p>\n
The loss of franchise icon Kobe Bryant weighed heavily on the organization after he died in a helicopter crash in January of 2020 which also claimed the lives of eight others, including his daughter.<\/p>\n
L.A. had to find a way forward that season after the tragedy, and 2020 Lakers champion Danny Green said that the loss of Bryant meant there was more on the line for the 2019-20 team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might\u2019ve been the only year that I was a favorite to win it,\u201d Green said of the 2019-20 team. \u201c\u2026 As a Laker, with that magnifying glass and that microscope on us throughout the whole year, brought a lot of heat and a lot of attention. And being the No. 1 seed and all the guys that we signed, you\u2019re expected to win. You\u2019re expected to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s critiquing you from the major media to the small-market media to people with fake accounts. There was definitely a \u2014 I wouldn\u2019t say a huge amount of pressure, but added pressure following Kobe\u2019s death and then of course when they brought in the Mamba jerseys and wearing that Mamba jersey.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was sleek. It was nice. It was my favorite jersey of all time. Fire jersey, but it came with a little bit of extra pressure on top. And then from that point on, it was like we weren\u2019t just playing for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
On top of dealing with the loss of Bryant, the Lakers (and other teams around the league) had to deal with shifting circumstances in the 2019-20 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
The NBA was forced to pause the season in March, and it didn\u2019t resume until months later in a bubble in Orlando, Fla. Meanwhile, tension around social issues made it impossible for players to focus solely on basketball, with much of the league speaking out about racial injustice around the country.<\/p>\n
There were times when it seemed like the Lakers weren\u2019t going to get a chance to finish the season and complete their goal, but they ultimately did cross the finish line and win a title for Bryant. No team in the postseason was able to legitimately challenge Los Angeles, as the squad never lost more than two games to any of its playoff opponents.<\/p>\n
Green played a key role en route to the Lakers taking the crown, starting 21 games during the playoff run and averaging 8.0 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.2 assists per contest. The ring with L.A. marked the third of his NBA career after he also reached the promised land with the San Antonio Spurs and Toronto Raptors.<\/p>\n
Bryant won five titles during his career with the Lakers, and the team\u2019s 2020 championship marked its first since the end of his career. Nowadays, the team is looking to return to the mountaintop as it builds around new franchise cornerstone Luka Doncic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers had to overcome tragedy and adversity en route to winning their NBA title.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,117860,13800,7232,85],"class_list":["post-724239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-danny-green","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}