The Los Angeles Lakers have faced plenty of criticism for their 2020 NBA Championship, mostly coming from LeBron James’ haters. They’re perhaps the only team that gets blamed for winning.
Some fans don’t believe the bubble championship should count, and they’ve constantly discredited it for some of the performances we’ve seen. T.J. Warren looked like the second coming of Michael Jordan, for crying out loud.
Whatever the case, they still were the best team in the bubble, and they proved it by beating every rival they faced en route to that ring. That’s why Damian Lillard believes it was actually a tougher ring to win because everybody was so locked in.
Damian Lillard Disagrees With Bubble Ring Criticism
“I felt like that was the best version of me to that point, so I don’t understand what people mean,” Lillard said. “I feel like that was hard to win because people were fresh. You got people talking about mental health, we stuck on a resort, I didn’t deal with all that. Based on how my body felt, we will never see a more fresh version of the opposition than we did at the time. (…) Why doesn’t it count? Nobody else won it. Everybody had the same opportunity. Why didn’t they win it?”
Some NBA players reportedly struggled with solitude and mental health issues in the bubble, but others made the most of their time in a luxury resort and were in the best shape of their careers.
At the end of the day, it’s all about beating whoever’s in front of you, regardless of the conditions, and it’s not like the Lakers had an edge over their rivals of any sort.
