On the heels of the Los Angeles Lakers' 17th championship in franchise history, there is chatter about the latest title's status on whether it should have an asterisk. One such person discussing the topic is former Lakers head coach of the storied Showtime era and current head exec for the Miami Heat, Pat Riley, said the championship ought to have an asterisk but not for many reasons others are citing.
"I would like to see what it would be like with everybody whole. We’ll get our chance again. The Lakers have the greatest player in the game today in LeBron and Anthony Davis. They beat us fair and squarely. But there will be, always be, that asterisk; if we had Bam and Goran 100 percent — Goran was our leading scorer — it might have gone to a seventh game," Riley said during a Zoom call with reporters on Saturday.
The comments were met with a lot of pushback from the social media sphere. Many called out Riley for his players' apparent lack of durability in the case of Goran Dragic and Bam Adebayo. While it is interesting to speculate about how well the Lakers would've faired against a healthy Heat team, the Lakers were responsible for beating the team put in front of them, whether they were at 100 percent or not.
Source: nba.nbcsports.com
