In a segment on ‘Inside the NBA,’ Lakers legend Shaquille O’Neal defended his former team for raising their in-season tournament banner alongside their actual championship banners.
Amid ongoing backlash from Lakers Nation, O’Neal explained why the IST banner is more of a decoration than an accolade of equal weight to the Larry O’Brien.
“If you look at the real banner, it’s a certain color. This is just an ornament. It’s not a banner because it doesn’t look like the other banners… it’s decoration.”
As winners of 17 NBA championships, no organization in NBA history knows what it means to win more than the Lakers.
Even so, fans were disappointed to see the Lakers treat the tournament with such importance, especially since it may have slowed them down during the regular season.
But regardless of the raised banner, fans should make no mistake in thinking that the Lakers are satisfied this season.
The hard work has really just begun this season and now all eyes are set on positioning the team for an actual playoff run this spring.
Lakers Nation has been in a heated debate over the in-season championship. The Lakers made history as the first team to win it, but they were brutally clowned for celebrating the victory.
Right now, fans just don’t consider the in-season tournament to hold much weight and the Lakers became the laughingstock of the league when they decided to raise the banner.
Some Lakers fans felt embarrassed for their team, that they went all out with champagne and a ceremony for a tournament that means nothing in the grand scheme of things Of course, there are also some people on the other side of this. Like it or not, the Lakers accomplished something during the tournament and they made history by becoming the first team ever to win it.
