Nothing has been normal for most of 2020. But in the Disney NBA bubble, basketball was played. The rules were the same. The court was the usual size. A full playoffs were played. And the Lakers won the championship.
Here’s the OC Register:
There are trinkets to remind him: the Ace of Spades champagne bottle which doused the Lakers’ locker room; the championship T-shirts and hats that were drenched; the Kobe Bryant pin and the Coaches for Racial Justice pin that were attached to his polo daily.
Frank Vogel also kept his thermometer and pulse oximeter – two pieces of equipment used daily in the NBA bubble that remind him why all of those games were played at Disney World in the first place.
“For something that had never been done before, it was done on a gold-standard level,” Vogel said recently. “To me, that was the most incredible thing about the bubble: getting that buy-in from 99 percent of the staff and players. There are things you come away with when you leave, like you felt there was a security blanket when you were there.”
While the championship-winning head coach of the Lakers hoped to have some safe travel in his offseason plans, some of the most rewarding moments since leaving the bubble have been mundane, everyday life. After 95 days away from his family, Vogel said one of the things he missed the most was driving his two daughters to soccer practice.
Up next in the NBA is a November 6 deadline for either the NBA or the Players Union to terminate the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, should either side wish to do that. And then the 2020 NBA draft, on Wednesday, November 18. Both dates had been rescheduled.
