Former Rockets General Manager Says Lakers Championship is Marked Forever

Marking the fifth anniversary of the NBA bubble season, Joe Vardon from The Athletic reached out to players and staff who were in the bubble to get their thoughts on what went on and about the asterisk on the Los Angeles Lakers' championship.

Former Rockets general manager Daryl Morey had a lot to say, especially regarding the Lakers' 2020 championship, and it may rub Los Angeles fans the wrong way.

"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," said Morey.

Joe Vardon, who happened to also lived on the Disney campus during the NBA's 2020 season, gave his insight on the Lakers' championship, acknowledging that circumstances certainly affected every team the same, whether it was a benefit or not.

"Everyone played by the same rules, and the Lakers were a great team that year anyway. While I echo what my colleagues say about the difficulty of winning the bubble playoffs, I do have a “Yeah, but…” One of the hard parts of the postseason is the air travel, especially on older players because of their recovery times. LeBron took one flight in three months, and I don’t know what to do with that. Everyone in the Lakers played against in the bubble had the same set of circumstances, but when comparing the 2020 champs to preceding and succeeding champions, the Lakers and their aging vets didn’t have to play a game, get on an airplane, and play another game within 48 hours," said Vardon.

Now the President of Basketball Operations for the Philadelphia 76ers, Morey may have said what most analysts and insiders have been wanting to say since the conclusion of the season, yet were afraid of the negative connotations that followed.