The Lakers won the first-ever In-Season Tournament organized by the NBA after the format saw tremendous success in helping generate fan interest. After the Los Angeles Lakers won the competition, they held a celebration where they popped champagne and later, raised a banner to commemorate the win.
Miami Heat legend Udonis Haslem wasn’t a fan of how the Lakers went about celebrating this achievement.
“I’m all for people getting their money. That 500K? I’m all for that. But what we aren’t going to do is pop champagne and hang banners. We ain’t doing that, not for this.”
Udonis Haslem wasn’t a fan of the Lakers popping champagne and putting up a banner for winning the in-season tournament
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— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) December 25, 2023
Before the Lakers had initially won the tournament, a report came out saying that the Lakers didn’t intend to hang a banner because they only raised championship banners.
“I’m told the Lakers currently have no plans to change their stance on only hanging banners for NBA championships. They don’t hang banners for Western Conference titles, Pacific Division titles, and (for now) potential NBA In-Season Tournament titles, only NBA titles.”
This stance was quickly ignored as the Lakers announced a new banner, something many believe the Lakers were requested by the league to do. Either way, the Lakers may have started a trend that all future In-Season champions will follow, with one banner that will be updated with years of winning.
Shaquille O’Neal Is Content With The Lakers New Banner
Many people haven’t been a fan of the reverence the Lakers attached to the In-Season Tournament. With LeBron James also playing, naturally many fans and analysts are reacting to this situation because of their distaste for LeBron. Even out-of-touch coaches like George Karl, a man who never raised a championship banner anyway, have found a way to criticize this achievement.
Former champions and respected figures of the league like Shaquille O’Neal don’t have a problem with what the Lakers decided to do, appreciating the new banner for being distinct from the championship banners that the Lakers have raised. O’Neal did refer to it as a flag and not an authentic championship banner.
“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. All the other banners are gold. This is just an ornament. They won the In-Season Tournament, it’s a decoration. Everybody else called it a banner, it was not a banner. All the other banners are yellow.”
Given the Lakers initially didn’t want to raise this ‘banner’, they could agree with Shaq’s assessment. At least we know for a fact that the Lakers won’t put up different banners each time, with the one they’ve already raised having all future wins engraved onto it.
Celebrating a tournament win is being overheated, which could be because of the franchise and the player that won it. Regardless, the In-Season Tournament has already given birth to some cool future traditions.
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