The Clippers will always look back at the 2019-20 season as the biggest missed opportunity of their franchise history. They had the best chance of winning a title this year and choked with a blown 3-1 series to the Nuggets.
Various stars from that team have previously dismissed the legitimacy of the bubble, but Lou Williams seemed to express regret about the team not taking the bubble seriously as it was their best chance to win a title.
“It was a struggle to get us to the bubble from the beginning. We didn’t even want to go. So mentally, we came into it without the right mindset to finish the job. We didn’t even want to be there. I was in the bubble;e for 987 days and I think of Day 67 as, ‘Let’s get the f**k out of here’. Mentally, we weren’t in it for the long game. We didn’t see the pot of gold at the end of it. We started to hear the rumblings that nobody is going to respect this chip so we kind of just took our foot off the gas.”
“We started to hear the rumblings that nobody is going to respect this chip so we kind of just took our foot off the gas”
– Lou Williams on the Clippers losing in the bubble
(h/t @Jacobtheclipper )
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) November 13, 2023
A professional basketball player who never won a championship playing for a franchise that never won a championship saying that we stopped competing for the chip because ‘others wouldn’t respect it’ is either a flat-out lie or explains the mindset the Clippers approach basketball with, which shows why they never succeed in the NBA.
It’s hard for me to rationalize this argument. Did the Clippers think winning a title, albeit in the bubble, would be worse than blowing a 3-1 playoff lead to the Denver Nuggets? The Lakers made it clear during the bubble that they didn’t want to be there either, but when they knew they had to be there, they maximized their opportunity.
Members of the 2019-20 Clippers keep trying to discredit the Lakers’ success that year, and it’s gotten sad. Would the likes of LouWil and Patrick Beverley rather retire ringless than win the Bubble? If they say yes, it’s clear their priorities never included winning a title in the NBA, which is okay as long as they can be honest about it.
Damian Lillard Understood Why The Bubble Title Was So Challenging
The Clippers can make excuses till the cows come home, but every team that went there wanted to compete for the title in the challenging circumstances that we saw. Nowadays, it seems like former Clippers players are the ones saying that the title isn’t respected or means much, as other top stars around the league have given the Lakers their due.
Damian Lillard is one of them, who defended the bubble by saying it allowed the players to be at their freshest for the playoffs, using his own physical health as a comparison point.
“I don’t understand what people mean when they’re talking about getting credit… I feel it would have been hard to win that. People were fresh bruh… I feel like based off of how my body felt, and what I knew our experience was, we would never see a more fresh version of the opposition than we did at that time.”
Some people look at it as a harder title than others because of how teams couldn’t cope with the mental pressure, while some look at it as an easier title because of the lack of fans. Regardless, it’s a title and every team in the NBA should never fall short of chasing one.
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