The NBA looks to resume its 2019-2020 season on July 31st in The Walt Disney World Resort by Orlando, Florida under the new “bubble” protocol plan.
This plan will involve players not being able to leave the resort for three and a half months… With that being said, LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard are looking to achieve something so historic and so rare that no one has ever accomplished before in the NBA. The two are looking to become the first player in league history to win an NBA championship and Finals MVP with 3 different franchises. Robert Horry and John Salley are the only NBA players ever to win 3 championships with 3 different teams but neither have won Finals MVP once. The significance of either Kawhi or LeBron winning it all this year would be immense because they would likely capture Finals MVP along with it.
LeBron James has 3 championships under his belt along with 3 Finals MVPs (2x with the 2012/2013 Miami Heat and 1x with the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers).
Kawhi Leonard on the other hand has 2 championships throughout his career along with 2 Finals MVPs (1x with the 2014 San Antonio Spurs and 1x with the 2019 Toronto Raptors).
Both players obviously would like to achieve this goal this year because LeBron James has his Lakers sitting atop the entire western conference with a 49-14 record currently and right under the Lakers come their cross town rivals, Kawhi Leonard’s Clippers who are 2nd in the west with a 44-20 record at the moment.
Only problem for these players is that only one will be the first ever to accomplish the feat (unless Giannis Antetokounmpo and the rest of the NBA playoff teams have anything to say about that).
Kawhi and LeBron are 2 of 3 players in NBA history to win finals MVP with at least two different franchises, the other being the current all time leading scorer, Kareem Abdul- Jabar with the Bucks (1971) and Lakers (1985). Assuming that the best player from either the Clippers or Lakers wins the 2020 Finals MVP, a new level of greatness would be achieved for that player and any player to join that club (if that’s even possible). This feat’s difficulty cannot be understated because again, no player has EVER accomplished something like this for three different organizations. It would also speak volumes about how that player’s success is not affected by the organization he joins (which tends to be the case for a lot of NBA superstars).