George Karl Takes Wild Shot At The Lakers Over In-Season Tournament Championship Banner

Big news came out of Los Angeles on Monday night when it was reported that the Lakers would be raising a championship banner for the In-Season Tournament. It drew a wide range of reactions from the basketball world, with former NBA head coach George Karl taking a wild shot at the Lakers for it.

"The Bubble banner + In-season banner stitched together would be like one whole banner!"

Karl clearly doesn't hold the NBA championship that the Lakers won in the Bubble in 2020 or this In-Season Tournament title in very high regard. This actually isn't even the first time that he has tried to downplay that title win in 2020. Last year, Karl wanted everyone to stop talking about the 2020 Orlando Bubble as if it were similar to other postseasons.

Then earlier this year, Karl made fun of the Bubble championship while defending Lakers head coach Darvin Ham. In both instances, Lakers fans got on him for his comments and he now has somewhat of a running feud with them.

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Lakers Fans Slammed George Karl

These comments from Karl were always going to generate reactions from Lakers fans. They didn't take it too well and proceeded to roast him.

One said if he stitched all of Karl's banners, then he'd have none.

A fan roasted Karl for never raising a single banner.

A fan wildly called Karl, the Chris Paul of coaches for never winning a ring.

A fan ruthlessly asked how Karl knew about banners.

One believes Karl is just jealous.

He had to know those taunts were inevitably going to come. Karl coached for a remarkable 27 seasons in the NBA and finished with a career record of 1,175-824. He made the playoffs an impressive 22 times with five different teams. 

The closest he came to a title was when he led the Seattle Supersonics to the NBA Finals in 1996, where they lost in six games to the 72-10 Chicago Bulls. Karl's teams also made the Conference Finals thrice, with the final one being when his Denver Nuggets lost in six games to the Lakers in 2009.

Is the 72-year-old somehow bitter over that? Who knows, but it's safe to say he'll keep taking shots at the Lakers in the meantime.

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Damian Lillard Felt It Was Harder To Win In The Bubble

Karl is obviously far from the only one who minimizes the Lakers' achievement of winning that title in the Bubble. Many in the basketball world have even called for an asterisk next to it considering the circumstances. There were no fans in the arena and a lot of the players did not want to be there either.

Damian Lillard, however, is not among that group that downplays the achievement. In fact, Lillard felt it was harder to win that Bubble championship.

"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 was 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 then we did at that time."

The players certainly were fresher than ever before from a physical standpoint during those playoffs. You can really look at the Bubble in both ways depending on what side of the argument you're on, which is why these debates on that championship will go on forever. 

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