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Podcast: The best Lakers team to never win a championship

The “I Love Basketball” crew goes through the contenders.

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1998 Western Conference Quarterfinals, Game 4: Los Angeles Lakers vs. Portland Trail Blazers Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

In the spirit of the quest to find the “Best Team To Never Win A Championship”, this week’s episode of “I Love Basketball” discusses some of the Lakers teams to make the list.

After an in-depth conversation about H-O-R-S-E involving production value and potential rule changes (semifinals are on tonight!), Sabreena and Anthony go through three really good Lakers teams that nonetheless didn’t win the title: the 1961-62 Elgin Baylor/Jerry West team, the 1997-98 pre-Phil Jackson Shaq Lakers, and the 2012-13 “Now This Is Going To Be Fun” Lakers.

The two of them take a deep dive down memory lane to go through what made these teams great, but also the specific challenges they faced in those seasons that prevented them from winning a championship. They also talk about what changes each of those teams made to eventually become title-worthy, and consider how the 2019-20 team will compare to others on this list if they never get a chance to play in the postseason.

The brunt of the discussion ended up being about why it’s so hard to find a Lakers team that meets the qualifications of this list that was also truly great.

You can listen to the full episode below, and to make sure you never miss a show, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts.

You can follow Sabreena and Anthony on Twitter at @sabreenajm and @AnthonyIrwinLA.

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