The Glory Days- Using Machine Learning to Examine Roster Construction During the Lakers Dynasties (Part 1)
Now that the KING is in LA, what better time for a retrospective on the Lakers dynasties and rosters of the past. Look at that mural- gives me goosebumps just seeing how many great players LA has been blessed with. However, Lebron will need a healthy roster to pair with him to maximize what’s left of his seemingly endless peak. Lakers roster moves so far have been curious to say the least, putting together the memeteam of Rondo, Lance, Mcgee, and Beasley. We will start with a look back at the Shaq-Kobe era and move on to Kobe-Pau era, and then thoughts on the current Lakers roster around Lebron and roster construction going forward.
I have so many fond memories of the Lakers from my childhood. In fact, you can say that we grew up together. I was born in 1988, just as Magic and Kareem won the second of their back to back titles, and they reached the end of their reign in the ’80s. By 1991, the Showtime era had officially ended, as the Bulls beat the Lakers in the finals and the baton was passed from Magic to MJ. The Lakers had to be rebuilt and reborn after such a successful and iconic era. And as I grew up, so did the new Lakers.
I was about as blessed a basketball fan as one can be. I grew up in LA as the hometown Lakers were just reaching the apex of a run towards 5 championships. As I became old to watch and understand basketball, the Lakers began to take shape. Through my formative years, I was able to see flip to my local KCAL 9 to watch road-games or NBC/ABC for national games. I didn’t have cable TV at home, so I even had the dedication to listen to Chick Hearn’s home game broadcast on the radio.
Some of my most vivid memories are seen through the tint of purple and gold. I will never forget the Kobe-Shaq lob that started the whole run.
Then there’s Kobe destroying the Pacers in the ’00 finals after Shaq fouled out, the sweep of the Spurs in ’01 when the Lakers were barreling through the playoffs (that Kobe reverse two-handed dunk going baseline!), Shaq averaging 40 and 20 against the Nets in the finals, Fisher 0.4, and countless Robert Horry daggers. The list goes on.
But it was also the trials and tribulations that made it all worthwhile. The Lakers roster went through many iterations in the 90’s before that fateful summer of 1996 when it all came together. In Jerry West I trust. The Lakers signed the biggest free-agent available in Shaq, while trading center Vlade Divac to both make room for Shaq, and take a shot with the 13th pick at a complementary player to Shaq. This complementary player would turn out to be Kobe Bryant, who became an even greater Laker.
It was more than these two stars that drove the Lakers success. Time and time again, it was the role players who made the Lakers an unbeatable team. Though Phil Jackson is often credited as being a superstar whisperer, I believe his greatest skill was building a team up into a solid cohesive unit. He was able to define clear roles that maximized their skills which gave the confidence to his role players to thrive. Superstars set the tone, and role players feed off these first or second options, but they have to step into their role. Time and time again, Phil has breathed life into the Dennis Rodmans, Steve Kerrs, Rick Foxs, Derek Fishers, and Robert Horrys, of the world. On any other team, they do not fulfill their potential.
In this post, I will be referencing my previous work on player positions in the NBA and roster construction frameworks to analyze the evolving roster of the Lakers from 2000 to 2016.
I previously identified 11 modern NBA positions that exist:
So which type of players make up the Lakers’ rosters?
The Lakers have enjoyed great success for the last decade, and the one constant has been Kobe. The majority of time, from 2001–2013, the Lakers have had an Elite Wing play significant minutes, and most of that is attributed to Kobe. Additionally, Kobe has played with a stable of great bigs most notably Shaq, but also Pau, Bynum, Odom, etc. In the same way, 2000–2013, the Lakers have had a significant portion of minutes going to Elite Bigs.
It looks like there has been Elite Guard minutes showing up in a couple seasons. I am curious to see who is being represented there. The Lakers have suffered from a lack of a signature point guard for years and David Stern nullifying the Chris Paul trade in 2011 did not help. Are those Elite Guard minutes Gary Payton or Steve Nash, because it sure can’t be Derek Fisher.
The other significant position that the Lakers have had strongly represented over the years are Floor Spacer / 3&D guys. In fact, during their strongest 3-peat championship run from 2000–01, this player type accounted for over 35% of all the season minutes. Who are these role players that have been so important to the Laker’s success?
The 3-Peat (2000–02)
2000 was Phil Jackson’s first year with the Lakers, and he was the missing piece to unlock their full potential. The Lakers were actually ahead of their time with the heavy use of a stretch 4 in Robert Horry. Nowadays, having a shooting big, whether a 4 or increasingly common, a 5, is standard procedure for team building. What stands out is that functionally, the Lakers use a heavy dose of Floor Spacer / 3&D players. It is fascinating that my clustering algorithm was able to cluster players together that are so visually disparate — Ron Harper, Derek Fisher, Robert Horry, and Rick Fox in 2000, for example. Yet watching the Lakers, I know that they functioned in a similar way on the court. The Lakers ran a triangle offense where either Shaq or Kobe often operated in areas of isolation- Shaq in the post, Kobe in the elbow or the free-throw line extended, and shooters were stationed around them to space the floor for them to operate and also provide outlets when the defense collapsed, creating open shots for the role players.
Frequently, these players feed entry passes into the post to Shaq and space and cut to keep help-defenders from doubling. It helped that the Lakers had two of the best isolation players in the league- Shaq and Kobe. Having a 4 like Robert Horry enter the post to Shaq, then space out to the corner, is immensely helpful in keeping the paint clear. Whereas in those days, a typical 4 was a post heavy player who occupied the paint. The Lakers floor spacers also played a key role in defending the other teams best players whether it was Rick Fox guarding Peja or Horry guarding Tim Duncan.
In the first championship run, Kobe was just coming into his own and that was his first year as an elite player. It is also curious that Kobe started in 2000 as an elite guard, before becoming an elite wing for the rest of his career. His scoring average in 2000 was only 22.5 ppg but he averaged 4.9 apg. His functional profile that year was more of a facilitator and some of the scoring burden was taken up by Glen Rice, who was effective a Secondary Ball Handler. A.C. Green filled the role as a general role player who did the dirty work, rebounding and finishing in the paint as a Mid-Range Monster. As my modeling showed, this team was heavy with minutes from Elite Bigs and Floor Spacer / 3&D guys and they were rewarded with a Championship season.
This season was the first championship for the Lakers, when they were still untested and unseasoned. The turning point was in the Portland series — they went up 3–1 but fumbled away the next two games to Portland, forcing a game 7. I still remember nervously watching that game at home with my dad and my brother. This was a tough Portland team featuring young talent like Sheed, Bonzi Wells, and Damon Stoudamire, but also deep experience in Steve Smith and Scottie Pippen. Pippen was guarding Kobe, and every time Kobe would blow by him, Pip would come back and take Kobe into the post. Kobe was helpless there against Pippen, still young and skinny and unable to handle Pippen’s savvy post moves. I swear, it was from this series that Kobe started his foray into the post to become the ultimate post technician.
If it had turned out differently, perhaps the Lakers championships never materialize. I sat there trying to will them to make one final run down 13 in the 4th quarter. The importance of role players cannot be over-emphasized — all great teams need supporting players to step up in crucial moments. This time it was Brian Shaw. I still remember distinctly when he hit threes to cut the lead from 13 to 10 and then 3 to 0. To me, these are psychologically important barriers in basketball come-backs. (I’ve observed that teams have trouble breaking through to under double digits and to take the lead, whether it is the players’ or my subconscious perceiving this.) It started with Kobe spiking a shot by Bonzi and then racing down for a Shaw transition three to cut it to a 10 point game. The momentum swung on that play. And it ended with the infamous Kobe to Shaq oop.
That was the oop that set the Lakers threepeat into motion. Lakers quickly dispatched the Pacers in the finals and Shaq famously promised a repeat in the Lakers championship parade.
Next year, the Lakers brought back the squad with the only major change of swapping their defensive/rebounding big man from AC Green to Horace Grant. Horace Grant actually functioned more effectively than AC Green since Green filled the role of Mid-Range Monster while Grant was an Efficient Rebounding Big.
The Lakers suffered from the Shaq malaise to start the season- Shaq and his teams were notorious slow-starters since he would “play himself back into shape.” Another famous term for this was “turning on the switch. And in this back to back year, armed with the knowledge that they had that next gear, the Lakers coasted to start the year.
Not only were the Lakers fighting complacency, but the injury bug cropped up too. Derek Fisher missed the first 62 games with a stress fracture in his foot, but when he returned, the Lakers were complete- his shooting was a game changer. LA went 15–5 to close the season after Fisher’s return, winning the last 8 going into the playoffs. Fisher came in scorching and demonstrated the important of floor spacing and shooting first-hand.
This was the year the Lakers made their epic run through the playoffs going 15–1, the best record ever for a Championship team. Derek Fisher really thrived, shooting over 50% from 3 throughout the playoffs, improving from 1.3 in the regular season to 2.2 in the playoffs in made 3s a game. The Spurs sweep was the most satisfying because of both the immense LA/Spurs rivalry and the utter domination the Lakers put down on the Spurs. This was the clear #1 seed with Timmy in his prime and home court advantage, and by the end, I will never forget crushing Timmy’s spirit as he cried on the bench after losing by 29 and 39 the last two games of the series. It was in this series that Fisher went 15–20 from 3, setting the record (at the time, of course Curry own this record now along with basically every conceivable 3pfg record) for most threes made in a sweep.
There’s filling a role, and then there’s sensing the moment. And what Phil excelled at, one of his most crucial skills, was empowering his role players. He gave them both boundless confidence, and also a well constrained role where they could thrive.
That year the Lakers had 4 Floor Spacer / 3&D players, while Fisher qualified as a scoring guard. In fact, through this 3-peat, the Lakers never dropped below 4 Floor Spacer / 3&D players. It proved crucial for Lakers success to surround superstar like Kobe and Shaq with top notch shooting. This was a symbiotic effect, with superstar gravity creating open shooting, conversely floor-spacing gravity creating space for superstars to operate 1 on 1. What is remarkable to note is that, from a roster construction perspective, the Lakers had by far the highest percentage of minutes played by the Floor Spacer / 3&D roles on all 3 championship teams.
The final series of that playoffs was the duel with Allen Iverson and the Sixers. Game 1 was the only loss for the Lakers in the playoffs that year, and it took OT and a superhuman duel with Tyronne Lue for the Sixers to pull it off.
One of the most amazing single-player efforts I have ever witnessed from AI but the Lakers really lacked defense at the point guard position. Fisher was not quick enough or experienced enough to stay with AI and he could not play as a result. The Lakers missed his shooting immensely and a shaky Tyronne Lue did not get it done. In the end, Kobe and Shaq proved too much for the next 4 games and finished the playoffs by steamrolling 15–1 to a championship. To this day, that is the team playoff record in the playoffs and in the conversation as the best playoff team of all time.
Going into the year of the 3-peat, the cracks in the Lakers armor began to show as the Kobe-Shaq sniping really began. However, their talent was still too great. They were both 1st team all NBA, while Kobe was also 2nd team all defense and All-Star Game MVP. This is the year that Kobe’s singular talent finally stood out and Lakers fans began to imagine a world where Kobe was the alpha dog in the team over Shaq.
This was also the year that the Lakers had the highest proportion of Floor Spacer / 3&D minutes, and Derek Fisher also assumed that role. It was beyond its time for a team to have over 50% of minutes allotted to this player type. After finishing with the second best record in the West behind Sacramento, the Western Conference Finals were set to be a clash of these Titans and the de facto NBA finals.
If the Lakers-Kings series was the crown jewel of this year’s playoffs, then Robert Horry was the sparkle. His clutch play shone through and he probably created THE defining moment of the playoffs. Game 4, the Kings took a 20+ point lead all game, threatening to go up 3–1 in the series which would really push LA to the brink. The Lakers rallied as they often do down 2 on the last possession. It was fitting that both Kobe and Shaq couldn’t put down the final shot only to Horry be the one to come through. I will never forget that tip out rebound from Vlade right to Horry, who buried that 3 at the buzzer. This was yet another example of a Phil Jackson role player coming through, and another of the countless Robert Horry clutch performances. The Lakers could never have enough clutch Floor Spacer / 3&D players that year.
That dramatic win propelled the Lakers through the rest of that series. It was still an incredibly tense series the rest of the way. Game 6 was marred with some of the worst officiating of all time, with the Lakers earning most of the benefit there. It was even linked to the Donaghy scandal and we have yet to have resolution on what happened in that game. Most notably, the Lakers shot 27 free throws in the fourth quarter alone which is mind-blowing.
Game 7 was a grind but went into OT, showing just how tense this entire series was. For some reason, I remember not being worried at all as we headed into the OT. For some reason, I just knew that we owned the Kings. And the Kings had their own role in doing themselves in. I still remember Peja airballing a corner 3 late in that game. In that game 7, the Kings melted down shooting 16–30 from the FT line and a horrific 2–20 from 3. As often is the case with game 7, one team chokes and it is hard to get great game play because of how truly tense and tiring it is. We see examples like game 7 Houston vs GSW in 2018 where HOU missed a record number of 3s in a row and the bloodbath between the Lakers-Celtics in the 2010 finals with the final score in the 60s.
After the Lakers survived that series, they swept the Nets in the finals. Shaq was too much, averaging a 40 & 20, pounding the Nets into submission and a quick sweep. The Nets featured too much Todd MuCullough at center.
What a run- I truly could never see this ending. My first true taste of basketball really spoiled me. To be inspired by this 3-peat was a blessing. When we acquired both Malone and Payton to start the next year, I felt like 4 or 5 championships in a row was easy. It didn’t turn out to be that straightforward after all.
In the next parts, I will cover the fall of the Shaq/Kobe Lakers, the doldrum years, and the subsequent rise of the Kobe led Kob/Pau/Odom/Bynum Lakers and the new-age Celtics rivalry.
