It has been 10 years since the Los Angeles Lakers won back-to-back titles. Kobe Bryant and company dominated the competition at that time reaching the NBA Finals in three straight years resulting in hoisting two more championship banners in the rafters at the Staples Center.
Although the Lakers were a dominant force during their three-year run, the league has changed drastically over the past decade. In today's NBA, The game is played more beyond the arc than ever with teams putting up enormous point totals on a nightly basis with players like Stephen Curry and James Harden changing the style of play while inspiring the next generation.
With the game being played so differently, we asked five-time NBA champion Derek Fisher whether his championship teams from 2009 and 2010 would be able to hold their own in today's NBA.
“I think the 08-09 team would stand up just fine and be one of the best teams in the league,” Fisher told ClutchPoints. “You can carry it over a little bit to the 09-10 team, but I think we kind of started to run out of gas a little bit by the time that third championship run when you think about the versatility of that 08-09 team and a little bit of 09-10. It's almost like the Warriors and the Nuggets in a sense of…imagine Lamar Odom and Gasol and Ariza and Kobe…you know, like Luke Walton is a point forward and Jordan Farmar's speed and athleticism. Shannon Brown. Josh Powell was an underrated forward.”
Fisher believes that his teams were quite similar to the stacked run-and-gun teams that dominate the competition in today's NBA. One team, in particular, reminds him a lot of the team he played with during the Lakers' run at back-to-back titles.
“We just had a lot of parts that remind me of today's teams,” Fisher said. “It reminds me of like the Warriors, Nuggets, Clippers. Those styles of teams that have these different lineups and different ways they can play and matchup against anybody. The Raptors, where they can have a big lineup with [Marc] Gasol out there, but then they can take Gasol off the court and [Serge] Ibaka is the center and [Pascal] Siakam is at the four then [Kawhi] Leonard and [Fred] VanVleet and [Kyle] Lowry in the backcourt.
“That reminds me of our 08-09 team even more so than the 09-10 team because we could just do anything. You could probably go back and find some numbers in terms of just like efficiency, offensive rating. The points and pace that we played at. That team was crazy good [laughs].”
Obviously, there is no way of really knowing whether Fisher's Lakers squads would be able to compete with the best of the best in the league today. However, it is an interesting debate, especially considering the fact it was only 10 years ago and how much the game has changed in that short amount of time.
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