The Los Angeles Lakers won the 2020 NBA title under anything but normal circumstances.
With the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc across the planet, the NBA held the playoffs in a bubble in Orlando, Fla. to protect its players from the virus.
No team truly had home-court advantage with all of the contests being held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.
Because the 2020 NBA Playoffs were not a typical playoff tournament, there are plenty of people who love to belittle the significance of the Lakers’ ring that year.
Former Chicago Bulls guard Ron Harper — who won three of his five titles playing with Michael Jordan — called the team’s bubble ring “trash” in a post on X on Sunday.
The bubble ring is just that! A bubble ring… trash
— Ron Harper (@HARPER04_5) July 20, 2025
Sunday didn’t mark the first time that Harper has openly discredited the Lakers’ championship run in 2020.
In December of last year, he responded to one X user who crowned forward LeBron James a Lakers legend and pointed out that outside of that bubble ring, James hasn’t won another ring in Los Angeles.
While people likely won’t stop arguing about the title run from the Lakers that year anytime soon, what’s not up for debate is that the Lakers enjoyed a dominant 2019-20 campaign from start to finish.
First, Los Angeles won 52 games in a truncated regular season and ended up with the best record in the Western Conference and second-best in the NBA. The Lakers then rode the momentum they built up in the regular season into an impressive stint in the 2020 NBA Playoffs.
Of the Lakers’ four playoff opponents on their path to a title, the Miami Heat were the only team to give Los Angeles a real fight and force a Game 6. Los Angeles dispatched each of its first three playoff foes in five games.
Maybe Harper should remind himself of just how lethal the Lakers were in the 2019-20 season before and after the establishment of the bubble the next time he posts something disparaging about that team’s run to a ring.
The championship is worth the same as any other title in NBA history, after all, as there’s still a banner hanging in the rafters for Los Angeles.
