Ex-Lakers champion critical of team for In-Season Tournament celebrations

Apr 22, 2023; Los Angeles, California, USA; The Los Angeles Lakers logo at center court during game three of the 2023 NBA playoffs at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The Los Angeles Lakers are hearing it from a former player who has even more championship rings than LeBron James.

The Lakers continued their skid on Wednesday night with a blowout 124-108 loss to the Chicago Bulls. They have now lost three straight games and four out of five since winning the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament earlier this month.

After the Bulls defeat, retired ex-Lakers guard Derek Fisher criticized the team over the way that they celebrated their IST triumph.

“I think there’s a reason why you wait until the end [of the season] to celebrate a championship,” Fisher said on the Lakers’ postgame show on Spectrum SportsNet, per Lakers Daily.

Fisher, who played 13 seasons with the Lakers and was a member of five of their NBA championship teams (2000-02 and 2009-10), has a point there. The Lakers went all-out in celebrating their In-Season Tournament victory, champagne and all. The team then made the controversial decision to hang a banner for the IST win, which they already unveiled during a ceremony at a recent game.

Perhaps motivated by the $500,000 cash incentive, the Lakers were a flaming meteor during the In-Season Tournament, going a perfect 7-0 in IST play. But it is fair to question whether their focus has waned as they now have some very ugly losses since then, including double-digit ones to the 11-win Bulls and the three-win San Antonio Spurs. Fisher is one person who knows the mentality it takes to win an actual championship (not just a regular season one), and he is not seeing that from this year’s Lakers.