Lakers Raise In-Season Tournament Banner And It's As Pathetic As You Thought It Would Be

"Congratulations to the 2023 In-Season Tournament Champion Los Angeles Lakers!"... said no one ever.

The historic franchise became a clown show on Monday night as they raised the IST Championship banner - the first of its kind - after Commissioner Adam Silver introduced the mid-season tournament prior to this season.

THE LAKERS WON THIS YEAR'S INAUGURAL IN-SEASON TOURNEY

Videos from the 'historic' moment last night showed a crowd that was unresponsive... there was hardly any cheering, you even see some of the players looking at each other like "WTF are we doing here?"

And that music? You knew things were going downhill once you had that lame ass MIDI keyboard copyright-free ballad being played. It reminded me of when everyone received a Little League participation trophy and a similar song - or maybe that exact song - was being played on a '90s Casio boombox.

To make matters even more cringe, the Lakers are so holier-than-thou that they don't even raise banners when they win the Western Conference Finals. It's NBA Titles or bust at the Staples Center.

That is until now.

For an In-Season Tournament Championship that zero and I mean ZERO, people asked for.

The Lakers raised their In-Season Tournament Championship banner on Monday night. (Getty Images)

THE IN-SEASON TOURNAMENT WON'T BRING IN MORE FANS

The fact that the Lakers originally said they wouldn't hang an IST banner only to then turn around and say they would, shows exactly what's going on here. Silver and the NBA made the team do it. Because if the team and players don't care about Silver's latest cash grab tournament - conveniently taking place in Las Vegas of all places - then the fans won't either.

Unfortunately for Silver, this aint it.

As I've argued time and time again, if the league wants fans to start caring about the NBA, then they should focus on one of the biggest complaints - players sitting out due to 'load management' excuses.

This isn't European soccer - we're good with one Championship a year, thanks.