Lakers News: "Legacy" Week 5 Recap - A Team In Transition

Meeting the "Lake Show" personnel.

We open the latest round of Antoine Fuqua's epic documentary series "Legacy: The True Story Of The Los Angeles Lakers" on a stoic note.

This week, things kick off with the 1992 Rodney King trial. Byron Scott, James Worthy and A.C. Green talk about their expectations as the trial was ongoing, and Scott, an Inglewood native, mentions in passing his own less-than-great dealings with the LAPD. The eighth-seeded Lakers were playing a must-win Game 3 against the top-seeded Portland Trail Blazers, down 2-0, in the first round of the 1992 Western Conference Playoffs, at home in the Forum, on the night of the verdict. 

Rob Lowe has been all over this documentary series, and apparently was present at that game as well. Longtime Lakers fans Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, all also omnipresent throughout this series, also comment on the riots and what they meant for the national conversation about police violence.

The Lakers won the contest, but the post-verdict riots got so out of control that Forum announcers advised players and fans to avoid heading east after the game. The series would be moved to Las Vegas due to safety considerations. 

With Magic Johnson gone, the Lakers that season were led by veteran champions James Worthy, still an All-Star at age 30 (though limited to just 54 games due to a left knee injury), plus shooting guard Byron Scott, virginal forward A.C. Green, and Sam Perkins. Second-year center Vlade Divac was healthy for just 36 games, and would be spelled through much of the season by reserve big man Elden Campbell. Though he had retired, HIV-positive Hall of Fame point guard Magic Johnson was that year's leading vote-getter on the All-Star ballot, and he did return for that contest. In the 1991 offseason, team GM Jerry West had traded for 6'2" SuperSonics point guard Sedale Threatt to replace Johnson. 

The team finished with a 43-39 regular season record. L.A. would go on to lose its best-of-five first-round matchup against the Trail Blazers 3-1.

Portland, led by All-Star shooting guard Clyde Drexler (who would finish second in MVP voting that season), plus point guard Terry Porter, small forward Jerome Kersey, and All-Defensive Second Team power forward Buck Williams, would wind up advancing all the way to the 1992 NBA Finals, where the team would fall to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in six games.

Following that playoff defeat, we meet the key personnel of what would become the sequel to L.A.'s Showtime period: the "Lake Show" era. Jerry West and co. selected 6'1" point guard Nick Van Exel out of the University of Cincinnati in the 1993 draft with the 37th pick. Van Exel would far outperform his draft standing, making an All-Star team in 1998 and eventually enjoying a 13-year playing career (though he was with the Denver Nuggets by the time the Lakers were winning titles again). The other key component of that Lake Show period was drafted the next season. In the 1994 draft, L.A. selected swingman Eddie Jones with the tenth pick out of Temple University. Jones would go on to make three All-Star teams (two with the Lakers), three All-Defensive Second Teams (one with the Lakers), and an All-NBA Third Team (with the Charlotte Hornets).

Kurt Rambis remained a bench piece for some of this era, and reflected that, though fans expected the team to win titles no matter the personnel, that is just not the reality of sports. Rambis notes that hometown fans occasionally booed the new squad. The 6'8" power forward had returned to the Lakers for the final two seasons of his career, 1993-1995. He would go on to serve as a coach with the club through 2009, returning as an assistant coach for the 2013-14 NBA season.

Jeanie Buss and Vlade Divac detail the team's 1990s "coaching carousel" following the 1992 resignation of Mike Dunleavy Sr. As far as head coaches are concerned, the team went through Bill Barker, Randy Pfund, the ill-fated return of Magic Johnson as a head coach (with old friends Michael Cooper and Kurt Rambis as assistants), Del Harris, Rambis for part of a season. Johnson admits now that he "never wanted to coach," but was essentially talked into it by Dr. Buss. Harris stuck around for a while, though he and Van Exel often struggled to get on the same page.

Longtime team trainer Gary Vitti, who worked with the Lakers for 32 years, is always refreshingly candid whenever he gets some camera time. He's a fun presence here. You can sense his passion for the club, the same passion that led him to walk away from a consultant gig with HBO's "Winning Time" fictionalized TV series, which also charts the rise of the Showtime Lakers.

The older Buss kids (John, Jim, Jeanie, and Janie) discuss Jim's fading horse-racing career, and his involvement with the Lakers front office as a scout under Jerry Buss starting in 1998. And then, to this writer's surprise, Jeanie candidly discusses her decision to pose in the Forum for Playboy. When longtime Forum general manager Claire Rothman  stepped down in 1995, Dr. Buss offered Jeanie the gig, but cautioned that it could significantly cut into her social life. She went for it.

Meanwhile, John Buss was brought in to run the club's WNBA team, the burgeoning L.A. Sparks. Jeanie reflects now on being frustrated at what she considers a missed opportunity.

The doc also covers Magic Johnson's brief return to the Lakers during the 1995-96 NBA season. The 1994-95 Lakers under Del Harris had returned to the playoffs after a two-year break, and had advanced to the second round thanks to the play of stars Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. The team was hoping to take the next step. At age 36, Johnson was slower and heavier (255 pounds), and joined the club as a role-playing power forward across 32 games, starting in January 1996. Johnson averaged 14.6 points, 6.9 assists, and 5.7 rebounds a night. Not bad for a guy who hadn't played in the league since the 1990-91 season. 

L.A. finished the season with a 53-29 record and the No. 4 seed in the West. The team would fall to the fifth-seeded Houston Rockets, the reigning champs, 3-1 in a best-of-five series. Johnson retired for a final time after that series loss.

The episode ends on a hopeful note, talking about perhaps the team's most important offseason ever: 1996, the year Jerry West traded Divac to the Charlotte Hornets for the rights to select Kobe Bryant with the 13th pick and lured Shaquille O'Neal away from the Orlando Magic. 

"I don't care who you were, there was not one individual that could stop [O'Neal] alone, not even Vlade [Divac]," Jones says in the documentary. "Even though I love Vlade... Vlade had no chance."