While isolated on the NBA's Lake Buena Vista, Florida campus during the 2020 start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a Los Angeles Lakers champion admits that he befriended a Miami Heat All-Star who would eventually become his NBA Finals nemesis.
During a recent interview with longtime NBA insider Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson for his show "Scoop B Selects," former sharpshooting reserve Lakers guard Quinn Cook revealed that, beyond his LA teammates, he and All-Star Heat big man Bam Adebayo became fast friends.
"For me, Bam Adebayo. I hung out with Bam a lot," Cook said.
Unlikely allies off the court
The 6-foot-9 Kentucky product had made his first All-Star and All-Defensive teams ever that season, emerging as Jimmy Butler's top teammate en route to an NBA Finals clash with Los Angeles. The Lakers won in six hard-fought games, although Heat point guard Goran Dragic — then the club's third-best player — was hurt for much of the series.
But Adebayo wasn't the only ostensible rival Cook logged major minutes with, as then-L.A. Clippers combo guard Lou Williams had long been a childhood hero of Cook's, and Cook admitted that he couldn't resist picking the three-time Sixth Man of the Year's brain.
"I grew up a big BIG fan of Lou Will. So to really… and at that time the Lakers and Clippers we had our little rivalry and when we were around in the city, it was still kind of that rivalry but I got to talk to him every morning, every day and ask him some stuff — and I’m like a fan," Cook said. "So when I see players that I grew up idolizing, I don’t care what team I’m playing with. So, Lou Will is somebody I got close to in the bubble."
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Cook was not a major part of the Lakers' Finals run. Having felt the rotational squeeze in the playoffs, he appeared in just six contests throughout the entire playoffs that season.
When asked by Robinson if the Lakers' bubble championship deserves some kind of asterisk and/or is somehow less "worthy" of being considered a full title, Cooke pushed back on this narrative.
"Well, it’s fresh. People can remember where they were and everything but, I’m a basketball historian and I was 6-years old when that Spurs team beat the Knicks in ‘99 and we never bring up that first Tim Duncan championship, you know?" Cook said. "Tim has his championships. David [Robinson], Avery Johnson, Pop…. they beat the Pistons, they beat the Heat; they beat this team but, the Knicks? Hey I’m 32 and I’ve never heard that in my lifetime. So you know what down the line, people will appreciate it."
To Cook's point, the Lakers were led by two first-ballot Hall of Famers, 21-time All-Star forward LeBron James and 10-time All-Star center/power forward Anthony Davis, and they vanquished a first-ballot Hall of Famer in Butler and an eventual three-time All-Star talent in Adebayo. This was a legitimate victory, against legitimate competition.
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