How Dodgers can take some cues from 2002 Lakers in three-peat chase
Can you dig it? Can you hear it?
They grow louder and louder, the echoes of 2002, when Lakers flags flew above car doors all over Los Angeles and, for the third year in a row, residents marched, joyful and triumphant, with another championship to celebrate.
Like everywhere else, Los Angeles understands: great teams win championships. Exceptionally large teams repeat, consecutively. But only the biggest teams have three.
We haven’t seen a winning trio in North American sports since the Lakers beat the Indiana Pacers, Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets in successive NBA Finals.
But can history repeat itself now? Can the Dodgers hit threes?
Take a look at former Laker coach Phil Jackson’s three-peat plans, especially the Los Angeles one, and tell me, do you see that too?
Do you recognize the familiar notes and similar focus? The symmetry in what both teams say about what it took and what it will take to achieve the fifth hat-trick in their respective sports? You see all the signs pointing Yes?
“The mistake championship teams often make is trying to repeat their winning formula,” Jackson wrote in his 2013 book, “Eleven Rings.” “The key to lasting success is to continue to grow as a team. Winning means going into the unknown and creating something new.”
It’s funny, Dave Roberts said pretty much the same thing: “There’s a core group of players, but things play out so differently every year. I think it’s about being able to pick it apart and look at it on its own.”
Of course, it helped that the Lakers had two of the greatest players of all time, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. And that the Dodgers have Shohei Ohtani, the greatest baseball talent of all time – flanked on all sides by baseball stars.
Yes, they produce. They also stimulate production.
“It was about winning championships, that was the expectation and I think everyone in that locker room felt that pressure,” said Mark Madsen, whose first two NBA seasons were on the Lakers’ championship teams. “I I felt that pressure as an actor, and it made me better.
“It’s easy to come here and work hard,” said Ben Casparius, the Dodgers’ 27-year-old third-year reliever. “I want to perform well for Freddie (Freeman) and for Mookie (Betts) and for these guys who have been doing it a long time, who deserve that level of focus and adapting to be able to win.”
The Lakers have always had stars in their roles: big names like Horry and Derek Fisher. The Dodgers have great successes like Kiké Hernández and Miguel Rojas.
The Lakers then asked Jerry West to put things in motion; the Dodgers have Andrew Friedman doing it now.
The Lakers had Jackson, the Dodgers have Roberts – championship players who excelled as men’s managers.
But look, that’s just the edge of the rubber.
“It has to do with management,” said Robert Horry, one of seven players who were on the Lakers’ three championship teams. “If they find the best massage therapist, the best trainers, the best nutritionist, all those things play a role. You want to feel like you’re being taken care of…and athletes, we want to be pampered, we want to be loved, you want to be appreciated, and I think both organizations strive to do that.”
Robert Horry, mobbed by his teammates after scoring a game-winning three-pointer in Game 4 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals, was one of seven players who were part of the Lakers’ three title-winning teams between 2000 and 2002.
(WALLY SKALIJ/Los Angeles Times)
Only a jumpball to open the game.
“There’s a lot of glitz and glamor around the Dodgers and Los Angeles,” Casparius said. “But I don’t think people really understand the amount of work that goes into it. From our nutritionist to our coaches to our strength and conditioning guy to our pitching coordinators, everyone works hard. People aren’t happy when we lose spring training games. People aren’t happy if we make a few mistakes or if the pitchers aren’t throwing strikes. The bar is high everywhere.”
Of course, these are basketballs and baseballs, and it’s not a perfect comparison; just imagine how high Ohtani’s usage would be if you could spam the pick-and-roll with him.
And the Lakers’ three-peat was nearly a quarter-century ago; their total player payroll was $53 million, about $4 million less than what Kyle Tucker will make this season.
Oh, but tomayto, tomahto.
If these Lakers — combustible and bored but better constructed than every other team on the planet at the time — could turn the triple play, so can Roberts’ drama-free superteam.
But the first rule about three-peaters is don’t talk about three-peaters, or as third baseman Max Muncy surmised: “The biggest challenge of a three-peater is not to treat it like it’s a three-peat.” »
“Don’t even think about it,” Horry said. “When we were aiming for the treble, we didn’t talk about it. We just said we wanted to play the best ball possible.”
The Dodgers understand, Hernández said, because “whatever happened last year and the year before, it’s already paid for, it’s already history. You’re not trying to win three championships in one year, you’re just trying to win this year.”
The beauty of this reflection is that it transcends all three axes and begins to look at life more broadly.
“I remember,” Madsen said, “what George Mumford, our team psychologist, always said: ‘Don’t live in the past, don’t live in the future, just live in the present. If you make a mistake, don’t dwell on it. And don’t get carried away thinking about the future. Only be in the present, be the best version of yourself in the present. The rest will take care of itself.'”
Mark Madsen was drafted by the Lakers in 2000 and was part of the 2001 and 2002 championship teams. He later served as an assistant coach with the Lakers, above.
(Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Of course, opponents will also eagerly want to be the best versions of themselves in those moments, they face the Dodgers.
“Every night you’re the measuring stick for every team you play,” Horry said.
Catcher Dalton Rushing echoed: “You have teams that come to town and they could have lost their last 13 games, but if they take two from the Dodgers, their whole month is over.”
But I have to like it, these guys say.
“I take that as a compliment,” Hernández said. “I take it as a privilege.”
Kiké Hernández, above in a 2024 game, won the World Series three times with the Dodgers, including the previous two seasons.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Privilege is pressure, pressure is privilege and the opportunity to write such a rarefied story, with the folks at FanGraphs giving the Dodgers a 27% chance of winning this World Series, is anything but automatic.
“We can understand why the third time is the hardest,” Fisher said on June 12, 2002, after the Lakers swept the Nets to win third place, capping a season in which they finished tied for second in the Western Conference.
“It started out as a foregone conclusion. It didn’t happen as we moved forward. So for our basketball team, the fact that we didn’t give up makes it special. We fought through it.”
LA remembers it. LA likes it.
“(The Lakers) had great teams, and this city loves to win,” Hernández said. “And we’ve been pretty good at winning the last couple of years, so we’re trying to keep doing that.”
Los Angeles loves him.
