The Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers share the same arena with the Staples Center and while the Lakers were the dominant team in the city for many years, last year the Clips were way better and with this season is shaping up to be the same way, the team took a couple gamesmanship shots during the preseason, covering up the championship banners for the Lakers with their own player posters.
According to ESPN.com, the new scheme for the Staples Center during home games with have seven player banners draped over the retired jerseys and title banners for the Lakers and the new design made its debut on Friday night for a preseason game and some Lakers were none too happy about it. Nick Young, a player that signed this offseason to the team, said to reporters that he felt it was disrespectful and the report says that Doc Rivers was behind the decision in part. Young added that Rivers should "earn" his "keep" to do something like that and Steve Nash added comments about it too, saying that he understand why the team wants to keep the arena as "home" looking as possible since they share it. The banners were in a photograph on ESPN and showed off players prominently with Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and the rest of the stars on the team, including new acquisitions JJ Redick and Jared Dudley.
The Lakers are coming off of a long road trip trip across the world to China and players said they felt pretty jet lagged after the trip ended. The team is still without Kobe Bryant while he is still recovering from his Achilles injury from last season and they will next play the Utah Jazz in the preseason after losing their last game on Friday morning US time against the Warriors in their second game in China. The team is 2-4 in the preseason, but the travel and injury issues are mainly the reason for that and the team has actually played fairly well. The team comes into the season after being the sixth ranked team in scoring last year and they will need players like Young, Wesley Johnson and Steve Nash to step up if Bryant is missing for any period of time.
The Lakers opened the preseason with a win before losing three of four games and the team lost both contests to the Warriors in China and now they will finish the season with two games against the Utah Jazz before starting the regular season. The Lakers open the season with an anticipated game against the Clippers and this whole thing with the banners will only make it more dramatic and the team then plays against the Warriors before a matchup against the San Antonio Spurs before the team hosts the Hawks. The team then has three road games against the Mavericks, Rockets and the Pelicans.