Kentavious Caldwell-Pope Says Lakers’ 2020 Bubble Title Was ‘One Of The Hardest Championships To Win’

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope told Draymond Green on “The Draymond Green Show” that the Los Angeles Lakers‘ 2020 NBA title was “one of the hardest championships to win.”

The Lakers beat the Miami Heat in the 2020 NBA Finals in six games at the Walt Disney World bubble. 

Many people say the Lakers’ 2020 title was easy and deserves an asterisk, but Caldwell-Pope doesn’t agree. 

“They just hating man. It’s one of the hardest championships to win,” Caldwell-Pope said. “You’re playing a season. Then the season shut down. You don’t know if you’re even going to come back and play basketball. We saw how in the regular season we was playing and then we was like, ‘What the f—.’ Season is over with. Like damn. Like what if we can’t come back because we already had in our mind like this is our championship regardless of if COVID stopped it or not.

“But then the season stops. Boom. Season starts back up and we have to go to the bubble. Once we knew the season was starting back up in the bubble, we was hype. We was ready to go get our championship like we wanted. Then the season stopped again in the bubble. These things like had people’s minds messed up like, ‘I’m ready to go home. Forget basketball.’ I’m so grateful and I appreciate all my teammates at the time. Their mindset was on that championship. They were ready to go. They came here for a reason and we wanted it.”

The Lakers beat the Portland Trail Blazers, Houston Rockets, Denver Nuggets and Heat in the 2020 playoffs.

LeBron James won the 2020 Finals MVP Award. 

“We wanted that one so bad,” Caldwell-Pope said. “We would have jumped through flaming hoops for it. For me, it was the hardest because of all the shutdown, restarting, shutdown. That can change a lot of people’s mindsets. Like, ‘F— this. I’m not dealing with this anymore.’ I always appreciated that and thankful that everybody on the team at that time had the same mindset. They weren’t ready to go.”

Caldwell-Pope is a two-time NBA champion. He won his second ring with the Nuggets in 2023. 

One of the best two-way players in the NBA, Caldwell-Pope signed with the Orlando Magic this offseason.