The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the NBA's most iconic franchises, and after beginning our team history series with the Boston Celtics, it is only fitting that the Lakers are next. Like every franchise in the Rewritten Rings universe, their story begins with the 1983–84 season.
Just as in reality, the Lakers opened this era by facing their longtime rivals, the Boston Celtics, in the 1984 NBA Finals. The result was the same, with the Celtics winning the championship, but in our universe Boston completed a dominant four-game sweep instead of winning the series in six games.
From there, however, history took a dramatically different turn. Rather than earning an immediate rematch with Boston in 1985, the Lakers saw their season come to an end in the Western Conference Finals at the hands of Adrian Dantley and the Utah Jazz.
The following season finally brought another meeting between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson on basketball's biggest stage, and this time it was the Showtime Lakers who got their revenge. Los Angeles swept the Celtics to capture the franchise's ninth NBA championship.
While real history saw Bird and Magic meet one final time in the 1987 NBA Finals followed by the Lakers defeating the Detroit Pistons in 1988 to become the first team since Bill Russell's Celtics to repeat as champions, the Rewritten Rings universe tells a much different story.
Instead, Julius Erving's Philadelphia 76ers, with a young Charles Barkley, captured the 1987 championship. The league still produced back-to-back champions, but they were the Washington Bullets, powered by John Stockton and Clyde Drexler, who won titles in both 1988 and 1989.
The Lakers still reached the 1988 NBA Finals, but they found themselves on the wrong side of one of the greatest comebacks in basketball history. After building a commanding 3-0 series lead, Los Angeles watched the Bullets rally to win four straight games and capture the championship.
It remains the only successful comeback from a 3-0 deficit in the NBA Finals in the Rewritten Rings universe, something that has still never happened in real life.
Despite the heartbreaking defeat, the Showtime era was far from over. Bird and Magic would meet one final time in this universe as well, though not until the 1990 NBA Finals.
During the 1989 offseason, the Lakers signed Terry Cummings, a move that proved to be the missing piece they had been searching for. Cummings delivered throughout the postseason and was named Finals MVP as Los Angeles defeated Boston to win the franchise's tenth NBA championship.
The Lakers returned to the NBA Finals once more in 1993, but this time they ran into David Robinson and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Without a dominant center capable of slowing Robinson, Los Angeles came up short as Cleveland claimed the championship. As of the end of the 1998–99 season, that remains the Lakers' most recent Finals appearance.
Although the Lakers remained among the league's elite franchises throughout this era, their accomplishments differ slightly from real history. From 1984 through 1999, the real-life Lakers won three championships while making six NBA Finals appearances.
In the Rewritten Rings universe, they captured two championships and reached five Finals, finishing one title and one Finals appearance short of their real-world counterparts.
Even so, the Magic Johnson-led Showtime Lakers remained one of the defining teams of the era, adding two more championships to one of the NBA's most decorated franchises and bringing the Lakers' total to ten championships.
The future of the Lakers remains unwritten. Will another superstar lead the franchise back to championship glory, or will the organization spend the coming years chasing the standard established by the legendary Showtime teams? As the Rewritten Rings universe continues beyond the 1998–99 season, the next chapter in Lakers history has yet to be written.
Check back for future updates as we continue to rewrite the history of the Lakers and discover what comes next in this alternate basketball universe.
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