No matter what year it is, the 2020 bubble NBA championship remains one of the most controversial championships ever. While many argue that playing in the bubble is like playing in an empty gymnasium, those who attended the championship disagree, including Nuggets and Lakers champion Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
In an interview with The Draymond Green Show, the former Nuggets champion spoke about how difficult it was to win in the NBA bubble. In Caldwell-Pope's eyes, the 2020 championship was one of the hardest to win.
“Everybody just hates it. It's one of the hardest championships to win,” Caldwell-Pope said. “You play a season and then the season is over. You don't even know if you're going to be able to come back and play basketball. You see we played the regular season and we were like, 'Oh my God.' The season's over, oh my God.”
It may have been easier to perform in the bubble compared to a regular NBA game with a full roster of fans and a road schedule, but there was also the mentality of not being able to go home, which is why the Lakers won and the Clippers fell to the Denver Nuggets.
“We were excited when we found out the season was going to resume in the bubble,” Caldwell-Pope said. “We were ready to win a championship like we wanted to, and then the season stopped again in the bubble. All of this just messed up everybody's minds and we were like, 'We're ready to go home. Forget about basketball.' I'm so grateful and I'm so grateful to all my teammates at the time. Their minds were on winning. They were ready to go. They came here for a reason and that's what we wanted.”
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has perhaps the most unique perspective on the NBA bubble, because he was on both the 2020 Lakers championship team and the 2023 Denver Nuggets championship team. He was on both the championship team and the team that came from behind to win 3-1 against the Los Angeles Clippers. But no matter what anyone says, the 2020 NBA championship will be the most controversial one.
