Damian Lillard offered his brutally honest take on the Los Angeles Lakers’ 2020 ‘bubble’ NBA championship.
Over the past three years, many have discredited what L.A. did during the COVID-stricken basketball season that took place in 2020.
Due to the ongoing public health disaster that was taking place, the league decided to restart its season within the confines of a ‘bubble.’ Some teams and players thrived under those conditions, others didn’t.
But there is no denying that the 2020 NBA season was unlike any other in the sport’s history.
This week Lillard, who played exceptionally well in the bubble, offered his thoughts on the Lakers’ championship that year.
Damian Lillard speaks on the people who try to discredit the Lakers championship in 2020 in the bubble on Back on Figg pic.twitter.com/GciM2AUjh4
— 2Cool2Blog (@2Cool2Blog) September 19, 2023
“I felt like that was the best version of me to that point, so I don’t understand what people mean,” Lillard said of the bubble’s critics.
“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.
“There are players that lose that battle to getting tired or getting in late and not sleeping. Now, n***as is out here, Donovan Mitchell and Jamal Murray are going for 58 in the playoffs… It counts to me. Why doesn’t it count? Nobody else won it. Everybody had the same opportunity. Why didn’t they win it?”
The bubble was so controversial that multiple stars have spoken out about the legitimacy of the Lakers’ title. Kevin Durant did so as well.
As for Lillard, he is always one of the more straight-up guys in the NBA. Whether he is naming the best player in the league today, the four best players of all time or the second-best shooter in NBA history, he tends to keep it pretty real.
The photos speak for themselves. https://t.co/DxOmvJGEAN
— Game 7 (@game7__) September 19, 2023
If he says he respects Los Angeles’ championship, he definitely does.
And like he said, if it was so easy to win a title that year, why did so many other teams fail?
Lillard has no reason to defend the Lakers’ championship from the 2020 bubble, so if he is doing so, you know he means it.
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A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
