Alex Caruso clarifies controversial Lakers bubble championship joke

Each year, the NBA ecosystem attempts to award a kind of asterisk to the champion of this year, and 2025 will not be different. This champion of this year, The Oklahoma City Thunder, will face accusations according to which their title is tainted by the star of the Pacers Tyrese Haliburton tear his Achilles tendon in the first quarter of the match 7, but there is a good chance that even with this context in the history of the NBA which has literally decided the series, it will still not be the most controversial championship in the history of NBA.

This honor will (probably) still go to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020, because many over the years have tried to call their triumph of the NBA bubble “Mickey Mouse” and to reject it as less than a real championship, a position was only embraced by thunder (and the 2020 champion) Alex Caruso by saying more than the real Sunday ring which could not say that he had no more Sunday ring.

Now, whoever looks at the video clip can (probably) say that Caruso only presented the same dry signature spirit that he posted throughout his career, but that did not prevent the remark from creating headlines on the Internet, and provoking discourse on social networks – as evidenced by the 17th title of Lakers.

The next day, Caruso estimated that he had to clarify that he was joking. And in a rarity for a celebrity, you can say that it was not a carefully designed Ghostwritten declaration by public relations staff, because it gave roughly the funniest excuse:

He can also the under -sale, because – since, as the only Thunder player to have previously won a title – he had to teach his young teammates how to open a bottle of champagne. So, it goes without saying that he may also have some sips, and hey, after a victory in the seven game series, which could blame him?

However, whether Caruso jokes or not – and as a person who has covered almost all of his trip from the Ligue G star to a player of the ultimate NBA, I think it is quite obvious that it was – it is not questionable that the Lakers Championship was either different of any other title in the history of the NBA. Played in a bubble at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and after a layoff of several months, it is not even a debate that there has never been a championship exactly like that.

But different does not mean lesser. The playoffs were not going to be played in the home arenas that year, and even the 2021 playoffs played in stadiums mostly partially filled due to health and safety protocols. There was simply no scenario where the NBA was going to close long enough to have playoffs exactly like all the others in history.

The Lakers have always won the title, despite the loss of the advantage at home for which they had played hard all year round, and in the midst of the same circumstances as literally all the other teams. You can say that cirumstances were an advantage for them, but that ignores that all the other teams had the same “advantage”. And if you say that it is a lower title because they rested before the race and were not injured, you say that you are more interested in who can get the best chance of random health than who is the best basketball team that played the best of the year.

Yes, the Lakers had a few months off and did not have to travel in the bubble, but the same goes for all their opponents. One could even say that 2020 is really the less Gimmicky championship never, since the rest meant that almost all the teams were Top Health, no one was tired of the trip, and there were no external factors like the noisy crowd, quick travel reversals and a single team per match to face the hotel beds.

We will never know with certainty if the Lakers would have won differently, but the same goes for all champions: you can only play against opponents and circumstances in front of you. All we know with certainty now is that Alex Caruso can gain in one or the other scenario, and that perhaps the real asterisk of the title 2025 is whether the Thunder would have won it or not if the Lakers and the Bulls were not both so stupid.