According to LeBron James, who led the Los Angeles Lakers to the championship that year, it was the game in its purest form. “I agree when a lot of people say it’s the purest form of hoops. Like, it was strictly basketball. We all have the ability to do whatever we want in life. We’ve made a bunch of money, and have all the access, but that was gone in the bubble. You can’t just ‘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,” said James on ‘Mind the Game’ podcast with Steve Nash. “Obviously, we were there talking a lot about the off-the-court thing going on like social injustice, and police brutality, but when the basketball portion was the focus, that’s all it was. Of all my championships I’ve won, that level of focus… like, how long can you maintain your focus to get the job done? You have all the reasons 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 want to do this, why am I here?’ 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.”