2020 Lakers Champion Defends LA’s Bubble Victory Against Cynics
The 2019-20 NBA season was one to remember for Los Angeles Lakers fans and just basketball fans in general. Entering the season after a free agent summer frenzy, there were several revamped clubs who felt they had a real chance to win.
Teams like the Los Angeles Clippers, Brooklyn Nets, Boston Celtics and Miami Heat were putting together new All-Star casts. The first few months of the season didn’t disappoint, and fans were buzzing all year long. But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early March, and the league (plus pretty much everything else) came to a screeching halt.
The league decided to finish the season months later in a "bubble" campus down in Orlando, and the rest was history. The Lakers would go on to win the NBA title, their 17th overall, by defeating Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo's Miami Heat in a six-game NBA Finals series. LeBron James took home Finals MVP honors. But many people in the time since have discredited the ring that LA won.
Another former Lakers player recently defended the title, saying that the difficulties of being stuck in the bubble make it worth as much, if not more than others. Reserve LA center JaVale McGee recently discussed that run (to his personal third title) on the All The Smoke Podcast.
The strange part about the 2020 championship is that it is one of the few that has to be defended over and over again, along with the San Antonio Spurs' lockout-shortened 1999 season title. Understandably, 2020 is unlike any other championship in league history, but that was also year wholly unlike any other.
Additionally, many people act like they forgot that the Lakers were the best team in the Western Conference the entire season before the bubble and that they were just hitting their full stride right when things shut down. LA had taken down the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers in back-to-back games.
The criticism of the 2020 title has become a very tired narrative over the years, and the claims have no validity. The Lakers won the championship fair and square, and each team had an equal chance to win it all.
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