The 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers were a special group as they overcame a ton of adversity to win the NBA Championship.

Whether it be their preseason China trip, the death of Kobe Bryant or the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Lakers were able together and ran through the league in the regular season. Then, after a few month break due to the pandemic, the Lakers went to the Orlando bubble and came back with the championship, which was the fourth in LeBron James’ illustrious career.

Since the Lakers won that title, a lot of people have tried to downplay it. The circumstances were certainly unique playing in the Orlando bubble with no fans in attendance, but that doesn’t make it any less of a championship. The circumstances were the equal for everyone and one team ultimately came out of top.

James discussed the bubble on the latest episode of “Mind the Game” podcast with Steve Nash and stressed that it was pure hoops:

“I agree with what a lot of people say that it’s the purest form of hoops. 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 say 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. And obviously we were there talking about a lot of off-the-court things that were going on, the social injustice and police brutality and all that stuff, rightfully so. But when the basketball portion was the focus, that’s all it was. Of all my championships I’ve won, that level of focus, how long can you maintain your level of focus in order to get the job done? Because you have all the reasons if you want to get out of focus because you’re so accustomed to a certain lifestyle that you’re like to hell with this, I don’t wanna do this, why am I here? I don’t want to be a part of this, I can’t get a certain meal, I can’t do this, I can’t see my family, I can’t lock in… And you can very easily get out of why you’re there.”

The fact of the matter is that people downplay that postseason solely because it was James and the Lakers that came out on top. Everyone enjoyed the basketball while it was going on and didn’t downplay how legit the postseason once until L.A. won it all. Additionally, almost every player that has spoken about the bubble has echoed LeBron in saying that the sole focus was on basketball, which made it very competitive.

Unfortunately, the Lakers wound up breaking up that group of players the following offseason so they never got the chance to defend their title, and James is still sitting on four championships as he heads into his eighth season in L.A.

LeBron James isn’t the only member of the 2019-20 Lakers that recently defended the validity of their title as Kentavious Caldwell-Pope did so as well.

“Yeah, like we talked about it earlier. The season didn’t stop, whether you wanted to go home or not. That was y’all choice to choose to go home. We was joking about it like, ‘y’all could just give it to us.’ But we didn’t want it like that because of how our season went. We was whoopin’ ass during the season… We weren’t complaining about nothing, we wanted to play. It was the guys that already knew, we was gonna spank them.”

Have you subscribed to our YouTube channel? It’s the best way to watch player interviews, exclusive coverage from events, participate in live shows, and more!