Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey is a well-respected executive around the league. He’s won everywhere he’s been, though he’s still looking for that first NBA championship.
Because of that, Morey could catch some flack for downplaying what the Los Angeles Lakers were able to accomplish during the 2019-20 NBA season. With the season severely impacted thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, teams had to play in a bubble down the stretch and into the playoffs.
When the dust settled, the Lakers overcame those restraints, winning the team’s first title in a decade. And its only title, so far, with superstar LeBron James.
But Morey — and others around the league — don’t see it that way. Morey said he and many others don’t consider the Lakers’ 2019-20 title a “genuine championship,” according to The Athletic.
“Had the Rockets won the title, I absolutely would have celebrated it as legitimate, knowing the immense effort and resilience required. Yet, everyone I speak to around the league privately agrees that it doesn’t truly hold up as a genuine championship. Perhaps the lasting legacy of the NBA bubble is that the NBA should be proud of its leadership at both the beginning and end of the pandemic, even though the champion will forever be marked by an asterisk.”
It’s a bold claim, one that is certain to get Morey a ton of hate. Despite that, he still went on the record to call out the Lakers, and imply that many others around the NBA don’t respect that title.
The backlash was strong enough that he reached out to one Lakers-focused blogger, Anthony Irwin of Clutchpoints, to walk back some of his comments:
“I’m frustrated,” Morey said over the phone Wednesday afternoon. “Of course, I respect that title. I defend it to people all the time. It’s the thing I want the most.”
“I can see why you would have taken it that way, and that would’ve made me mad too,” Morey acknowledged.
If Morey is correct and many others share that sentiment, no one else is coming forward to share those thoughts. Every other person who answered a question about the legitimacy of the Lakers’ championship in The Athletic’s piece argued it’s a valid title, though none of those answers came from NBA executives.
It’s unclear why the Lakers’ 2019-20 NBA title is downplayed. Given the circumstances surrounding the pandemic, there’s an argument to be made it was one of the toughest championships in league history. That’s the track journalists Tim Reynolds and Kyle Goon took in The Athletic’s piece.
But Joe Vardon, the author of the article, provided one factor that may have helped the Lakers in the bubble. Vardon mentioned that the teams in the bubble didn’t have to travel, and that may have given the Lakers, who were an older squad who theoretically benefited more from extra rest, an advantage over other teams.
Maybe that was the difference for the James-led squad, though every other team played under the exact same circumstances.
Regardless of how others around the league feel, there’s not much to be done. The NBA was applauded in Vardon’s piece for the way it handled the bubble, and it isn’t going to come out and invalidate a championship.
As far as the league is concerned, the Lakers are the champions of the very legitimate 2019-20 NBA season. Anyone claiming otherwise comes off looking like a sore loser.
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