After Magic Johnson announced he was HIV positive and was retiring from the NBA in November 1991, the Los Angeles Lakers were forced to rebuild, and it was a struggle.
After a couple of seasons of barely holding on to respectability by making the playoffs as a low seed, they missed the playoffs in 1994 while committing to a youth movement.
Many likely thought L.A. would get stuck as a non-playoff team for years.
But general manager Jerry West found a couple of gems in the draft in point guard Nick Van Exel and shooting guard Eddie Jones.
Just prior to the 1994-95 season, West also sent a future first-round draft pick to the Phoenix Suns for forward Cedric Ceballos, a talented scorer who was stuck on the bench behind Charles Barkley.
The Lakers weren’t widely expected to do anything of note in 1995, but behind those three young players, they won 48 games and returned to the playoffs as the fifth seed in the Western Conference.
There, they faced the Seattle SuperSonics, a team that featured established stars Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp.
L.A. was the underdog, but after losing Game 1, it won the next two contests, giving it an opportunity to clinch the series in Game 4 at home.
Before a jubilant crowd at The Forum in Inglewood, Van Exel exploded for 34 points and nine assists while hitting 7-of-13 from 3-point range, and the Lakers knocked Seattle out of the playoffs with a 114-110 triumph.
It was the first playoff series the team had won since 1991.
Those Van Exel-led teams of the mid-1990s served as a bridge from the remanents of the Showtime era to the Kobe Bryant regime, and the Lakers would win three straight NBA championships several years later thanks to Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and legendary head coach Phil Jackson.
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