Phil Handy fires back at Daryl Morey's comment on Lakers' 2020 NBA championship
Phil Handy was a key member of coach Frank Vogel's staff on the Lakers that season. Now an assistant with the Dallas Mavericks, Handy took to X (formerly Twitter) to fire back at Morey's claim.
"They can talk all that [expletive] they want. If you weren't in the bubble to win it they may want to keep quiet about it. Every team came into the bubble to compete and win. If Houston would have beat us and won it I'm sure they wouldn't be saying it wasn't real lol."
That piece in The Athletic featured many quotes from some journalists who covered the 2020 NBA Playoffs inside the bubble. A few of them actually lauded the Lakers for winning what they called one of the toughest championships ever claimed.
That season started with the Lakers overcoming an opening night loss to the Los Angeles Clippers to win 24 of their next 26 games. Just before the schedule was suspended in March, they defeated the Milwaukee Bucks, who finished with the league's best record, and the Clippers, who were the favorites to win it all, in a span of under 48 hours.
Los Angeles finished first in the Western Conference and had the NBA's second-best record behind the Bucks. It isn't exactly a stretch to imagine them winning that year's world championship had the COVID-19 pandemic never taken place, especially given their deep roster and the sensational seasons LeBron James and Anthony Davis both had.
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