When talking on his podcast, LeBron James made a compelling case for the Lakers’ 2020 title to be considered a basketball purist’s dream.
The Lakers’ 2020 NBA title has been the topic of debate for five years now.
The critics — or, quite frankly, Lakers haters — have argued that it’s less valuable or somehow invalid due to the extenuating circumstances.
With the pandemic impacting the world, the regular season was cut short and the playoffs took place at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. However, restrictions can create opportunity.
Another way of looking at NBA players being away from their families, unable to travel and only playing basketball is that it made the playoffs a basketball purist’s dream. All other distractions were eliminated and we got to see what happens when the world’s best athletes are solely focused on the task they are best at.
LeBron James was in that environment and talked about this perspective on his latest episode of the “Mind The Game” podcast.
“I agree with what a lot of people say that it was the purest form of hoops, that it was strictly basketball. We all have the ability to do whatever we want in life. We’ve made a bunch of money, we have all the access. That’s gone in the bubble. You can’t just, ‘Oh, I’m about to go to a restaurant’ or ‘I’m about to do this.’ You can’t do none of that. Everything in the bubble was strictly about basketball. Obviously, we were there talking about a lot of the off-the-court things with the social injustice and police brutality, rightfully so. But when the basketball portion was the focus, that’s all it was.”
During the 2019-20 regular season, the Lakers were the best team in the Western Conference. They were 3.5 games ahead of the second-place Clippers and in the bubble, the distance between the two teams was even more apparent.
LeBron and the Lakers locked in and became the best version of themselves. Meanwhile, the Clippers folded like a lawn chair and blew a 3-1 lead in the second round against the Nuggets.
While the Lakers’ playoff run appeared easy for them as they beat all the Western Conference teams in five games before downing the Heat in six in the NBA Finals, LeBron went on to mention how challenging it was to play high-level basketball in those conditions.
“It was all about…how long can you maintain your focus in order to get the job done because you have all the reasons, if you want to, to get out of focus because you’re so accustomed to a certain lifestyle that you’re like ‘The hell with this. I don’t want to do this. Why am I here? I don’t want to be part of this. I can’t get a certain meal. I can’t do this. I can’t see my family.’ And you can very easily get out of why you’re there. Once I got there and I knew the team that we had and I knew what we was capable of, once I locked in, I was like ‘It’s survival of the fittest right now and I’m locking in. Let’s hit it.’”
Like many things involving LeBron, history is on his side. Over time, we’ve heard fewer and fewer jokes about “bubble rings” or invalidating this title because teams weren’t traveling or playing in front of fans.
The truth of the matter is that this championship was unique and difficult. From opening night to the final game, it spanned nearly a full calendar year. To win, it required a level of focus and commitment that no other team has ever achieved.
The 2020 playoffs provided us with a chance to witness what players and teams could do when they locked in on their game and rose to the challenge, as every other pro was doing the same.
Under these conditions, the Nuggets made it to the Western Conference Finals and put the league on notice, Jimmy Butler became “Playoff Jimmy” and led the Miami Heat to their first Finals appearance since LeBron’s departure, and James himself was on the other side, securing his fourth.
LeBron isn’t the first person to describe the challenges of playing in the bubble, and he certainly won’t be the last.
As more of these stories come out, it will hopefully only strengthen fans’ appreciation for what all NBA players went through to keep the league running and increase the admiration people have for the Lakers’ 2020 title.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.