The 1979-80 season was a revelation for the Los Angeles Lakers.
They had traded for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the best player in the NBA, in 1975, but it had been a fruitless endeavor to that point, as they had failed to reach the NBA Finals.
But in 1980, thanks to a once-in-a-generation rookie named Magic Johnson, the Lakers went from a good team to a great one.
They won 60 regular season games, just one shy of the league’s best record, and after disposing of the defending champion Seattle SuperSonics in the Western Conference Finals, they advanced to the Finals for the first time since 1972.
There, L.A. faced the Philadelphia 76ers, who featured the regal and poetic Julius Erving, plus a rough-and-tumble supporting cast and an even rougher fan base.
According to Jeff Pearlman’s book about the 1980s Lakers, 18 NBA head coaches were asked who they thought would win the matchup, and 11 said Philly.
But Abdul-Jabbar didn’t care what anyone thought. He was hungry for a ring.
In Game 1, he tossed in 33 points on 14-of-21 shooting, 14 rebounds, five assists and six blocked shots, and the Lakers had their way with the Sixers in a 109-102 win.
Abdul-Jabbar would dominate the rest of the series, at least until an ankle injury in Game 5 forced him to sit out the following contest.
Luckily for him and his team, Johnson would pick up the slack – and then some.
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