‘Unique’ NBA Seasonal Tournament winner banner will be hung by the Los Angeles Lakers.
If the winners of the first NBA In-Season Tournament beat the Indiana Pacers on Saturday, they will have a “unique” banner hung on the Arena rafters with other NBA championships and retired shirts to remember the win.
The Lakers will make a banner for their 17th NBA win that will be different from the others. It will be a “add-a-year” sign, so if the team wins another In-Season Tournament title in the future, they can be proud of it.
When it comes to flags, the Los Angeles Lakers usually have very strict rules. They hang on to them for a championship or more. No person’s number is taken off the field until that player is in the Hall for Fame.
Most teams would have a strict strategy like this, but remember that we’re talking about the Lakers. You can’t add many more title banners since you already have 17 of them.
As it stands, they’d need 19 more flags for conference wins and 33 more for division titles, therefore it makes sense to put some limits in place.
A story from The Athletic said the banner will be a different shape as well as color than the team’s other banners.
At first, it looked like the in-season event wouldn’t make the cut through this measure. Some news stories even said that the Lakers didn’t plan to put up a banner once they won the playoffs.
However, after beating the Indiana Pacers in Saturday to win the NBA’s first title, the Lakers chose to hang a banner, the team mentioned Monday.
The sign will be different from the ones that are now up showing the team’s 17 NBA titles. The Lakers won’t put up a different banner each time they win a tourney during the season.
Instead, they will hang one banner and add to it every time they win an event during the season.
It will be a different color and style than the banners that are up in Los Angeles right now.
Aside from LeBron James, who was named tournament MVP, and Anthony Davis, who was named to the All-Tournament team, the Lakers will also honor them on December 18.
The event during the season is still very new. It’s still not clear if and how long the In-Season Tournament will last.
But buy-in from the groups that compete and win it will be very important to its long-term success.
The fact that the Lakers broke a rule to put up this flag is a good sign for the event going forward.
But it sounds like they’re leaving room for future wins during the season to be honored under the same banner instead of putting up new ones.
After beating the Indiana Pacers on Saturday to win the first NBA Cup, the Lakers said on Monday that they would hang a sign at Crypto.com Arena to honor the win.
Along with the team’s 17 NBA title banners and retired jerseys, such as those of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and Kobe Bryant, the banner will be hung.
In their own words, the Lakers will “unveil a unique, add-a-year in-season tournament banner, recognizing the inaugural 2023 win.” They didn’t give any other information about the sign.
All of this sounds like a good compromise that recognizes the novel success while keeping it separate from the more prestigious ones that are praised from the rooftops.
The Lakers are the first team to do this, so it will be how other teams celebrate winning the NBA Cup from now on.