1988-89 Two new team - Miami i Charlotte. Detroit wins title.
1988-89 Two new team - Miami i Charlotte. Detroit wins title.
Although two new teams began play in Charlotte and Miami, some things
remained unchanged. Michael Jordan won his third straight NBA scoring title.
Magic Johnson won his second MVP. And the Detroit Pistons played the best
defense in the NBA. But the team's chemistry wasn't quite familylike, so three
days after the All-Star Game, the Pistons gave up Adrian Dantley and the first
draft pick to Dallas Mavericks for Mark Aguirre. The trade seemed rather risky,
but the Pistons finished the regular season with a league-best 63-19 record.
The Lakers wanted to send their captain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, into retirement
with three straight titles. Jabbar announced that this season, his 20th, would
be his last. The 42-year-old center had won the league MVP six times and become
the all-time scoring leader. When the Lakers went through the first three rounds
without a loss ( 11-0), it looked like capturing the next title was just a
formality. But Byron Scott suffered an injury that put him out of the games.
Similar injuries caught up with Magic Johnson in the next game, which cost the
Lakers a sweep against Detroit, which came back home with the title.
Dumars earns the Finals MVP. Joe Dumars was the best-kept secret in the
NBA utill the 1988-89 season, earlier he made the all-rookie team in 1986 and
played in the Finals in 1988. The wide shadow cast by stars like Isiah Thomas
and Bill Laimbeer was large enough to hide Dumars' strengths. When Mark Aguirre
was added, Dumars seem to be running even further from the spotlight. But Dumars'
excellent play on both ends of the court in the 1989 Finals once for all ended
his obscurity the moment he was named Finals MVP. Next to Thomas and Laimbeer,
Dumars knew he was seen as a player to reckon with, "I can understand that
people want to see fatastic things," Dumars said, "but believe me that we've got
plenty of them on our team where I don't have to be fantastic".
See also:
