Early word is that the new season starts on MLK Day.
This one feels good. Butler was amazing in the series, but he and Miami were up against a franchise on a mission. Personally, I think the whole "Win it for Kobe and Gianna" was bordering on bathos. It's not so much that their death wasn't immensely tragic, but the extent to which it was deployed to create a motivation for winning the title was, to put it mildly, a bit much. Nonetheless, it gave a certain context to #17 that made this a must win for the Lakers that would have overshadowed any other storyline coming into the game, including JB's monstrous triple doubles in 3 and 5, and it also made the win all the more significant in a time when bubble sports has limited the kind of interaction that fans (including the LAs notoriously entitled ones) need to be invested in the game. It's going to suck not being able to do a parade, but I can certainly live with it given the circumstances and how much the championship as a whole means to us.