Lakers: One Year Ago Today, the Lakers Won Championship Number 17
One year ago, the Lakers won the 2020 NBA championship. It is really strange acknowledging that in one year, two NBA teams have been crowned Champions, but there is the COVID-19 pandemic for you.
It's impossible to ignore. The pandemic changed everyone's lives. Some more than others. It changed the very nature of the NBA season, and NBA fans will now forever refer to the 2020 NBA season as "the bubble." From changing safety protocols so much that every team had to re-learn how to just go to practice safely, to learning how to find the intensity and passion for playing games without fans, to playing late into October...never let anyone call the Lakers NBA title anything that cheapens it. It's reductive and always comes from people whose NBA team didn't make it.
Instead, just remember the greatness. The Lakers 2020 NBA title has some major significance. It tied the Lakers and Celtics for the most number of titles. Celtics fans can no longer lord that over Laker fans. It made LeBron James the only player to win NBA Finals MVP with three different teams. It brought Anthony Davis his first NBA title. It brought Dwight Howard an NBA title with the Lakers; a phrase I personally never thought would exist as fact. It also made Rajon Rondo become the second player to win an NBA title with both the Lakers and the Celtics.
There are a lot of moments that hit hard. This one is often overlooked.
Then there was the matter of something else that happened in 2020. The world lost Kobe Bryant, Gigi, and seven other people. Laker fans felt from the beginning that the loss of Kobe was a catalyst for the Lakers title run. It felt so fateful that both the Dodgers and the Lakers won championships in 2020. Check out this video of Laker fans chanting, "Kobe!"
Is somebody cutting onions? Lakers were our 2020 NBA champions and nobody could say a word about it.
