We have finally shut the door on NBA Season 19/20, as LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers pulled away from the Miami Heat in 6 games and secured their 17th NBA title.

LeBron secured his 4th title along the way with a dominant finals display (as well as his 4th Finals MVP), but he didn’t do it alone this season.

Anthony Davis was enormous for the purple and gold, as no other team in the NBA has the luxury of having two top 5 players in the league on the same team, and they showed just how dominant of a duo they could be in their first year together.

The season took just about a full year to complete, as it seems like forever ago the Lakers and Clippers opened the season on Opening night way back on October 23rd, 2019.

Everyone saw the Clippers win on opening night as a sign of things to come this season, with Kawhi carrying that team without “Playoff P” to an early-season statement victory.

How wrong we were, as they had their pants pulled down in the 2nd round of the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets. Things may have been a little different had there been no bubble, but we will never know.

Everyone had to deal with the same circumstances, and some dealt with it better than others. The Lakers were just that much better than everyone else and that’s all there is to it.

Things to take away from the entire NBA Season:

1. LeBron still has more left in the tank (as long as AD is healthy and good to go with him).

2. Luka Doncic is an absolute superstar and will be a problem next season with a healthy Kristaps Porzingis.

3. The league is in a great place. Zion Williamson, Ja Morant, Trae Young, and Jayson Tatum just to name a few, will be lighting the league up for years to come.

4. Do not forget about the Golden State Warriors. They’ll be healthy next season!

5. Brooklyn are going to be really REALLY good next season! The role players that came in to make the playoffs this season will add Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to their roster. Enough said.

6. The Clippers have some soul searching to do. They looked completely average in the bubble come playoff time. Given they traded away 765 picks to grab Playoff P, they better hope this pays off in a Championship next season or else….

7. The Bubble was way better than we all thought it was going to be. 0 Positive cases resulting in no games being postponed (barring the protest) showed just how good a job the NBA did to pull this off!

Continuing from point 7, the Bubble had all of us salivating at some of the amazing games we were able to see, and the level of talent that was on the floor.

Given Basketball has fast become a position less game, below is the All-Star Bubble Squad:

Guards:
LeBron James, Damian Lillard, Luka Doncic, Jamal Murray, Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell.

Forwards:
Anthony Davis, Jimmy Butler, Jayson Tatum, TJ Warren, Bam Adebayo, Nikola Jokic.

Reserves / Honourable Mentions:
Jusuf Nurkic, Chris Paul, Tyler Herro, Kawhi Leonard.

Best Series in the Bubble:

Denver v Utah 1 st Round:
Jamal Murray v Donovan Mitchell.
Utah held a 3-1 lead in this series and looked well on their way to making the 2 nd round on the back of the brilliance of Donovan Mitchell.
Enter Jamal Murray! (As well as the unexpected postponement of Game 5).

The postponement of the series is almost forgotten about, with NBA players striking/protesting off-court matters regarding social injustices.
This may have been the break that Denver needed, as they seemingly came out of that break in the last 3 games with a new lease on life, and Jamal Murray took over!

This will be a great rivalry for years to come, with youth on the side of both of these teams, who will be fighting for division supremacy next season with Portland as well as OKC (stacked much?!).

Best Moment of the Bubble:

The game-winning jumper from Luka Doncic in their first-round series against the Clippers in Game 4, will go down as one of the greatest playoff game-winning 3s of all time.

Luka put the team on his back with the loss of Kristaps Porzingis, and playing on a tender ankle, hitting a step-back 3 to win Game 4 135-133 in OT.

Luka put up 43 Points, 17 Rebounds, and 13 Assists. The sky is the limit for this team as long as Luka Doncic is healthy, and there’s no doubt Mark Cuban will do whatever it takes to surround his superstar with as much help as possible going into next season.

Next season couldn’t come around quick enough, as now that we have had our fix of some quality basketball over the last few months in the bubble, we can’t wait too much longer for more!

Bring on next season and congrats to this season’s NBA Champions, the Los Angeles Lakers.

Bauky