The Lakers won 65 games in the regular season, followed it up with their 15th NBA championship and then took part in a day-long party downtown before scattering for three months, going their separate ways with a lifetime's worth of memories rolled into a nine-month period.
What next?
As they begin a new season tonight against the Clippers, with a wealth of talent and an abundance of expectations, there's a question being bandied about quietly. Can the Lakers beat the almost mythical regular-season record for victories in a season, set by the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan in 1995-96 on the way to an NBA championship?
Kobe Bryant is already chasing Jordan's six NBA championships -- he has four -- and he has mentioned the Bulls' 72-10 record privately to some of the Lakers.
Bryant didn't go into much detail when asked about it by The Times, other than to say, "That's the goal, try to get better every year. Last year we had games where we lost maybe three right at the buzzer, and we could have won 68 games."
Sixty-eight wouldn't quite do it. Then again, the Lakers are chasing a legendary collection of characters.
Thanks to Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the flamboyant Dennis Rodman, a blast of hysteria followed the Bulls in every city they visited, making them more Beatles than basketball team.
The Bulls led the league in scoring in 1995-96, averaging 105.2 points a game, and were third in defense, giving up only 92.9 points a game. They had an 18-game winning streak, lost only two home games and won 33 road games, another NBA record.
Yet some Lakers think it's not out of the question to try to top 72.
Lakers veteran forward Lamar Odom, whose name now resonates among gossip-magazine groupies because of his rush-to-the-altar marriage last month to reality-TV star Khloe Kardashian, is on the "anything's possible" side.
"I think there's a shot. It would be cool too," he said. "If we can get the Bulls' record and win a championship, I'd take that. But if we won only 58 and won a championship, I'd take that. At the end of the day, you want to be the best team standing in June."
The Lakers' resemblance to that legendary Bulls team is obvious, if not slightly peculiar.
Each team had the best player in the clutch -- the Bulls had Jordan, the Lakers have Kobe Bryant. Each team had a talented No. 2 guy -- Pippen for the Bulls, Pau Gasol now for the Lakers. And each team had a wild card, someone as flamboyant off the court as on it, the Bulls' Rodman and Lakers newcomer Ron Artest, two players with unpredictable personas.
