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The LA Lakers and their infamous bubble championship have continued to be the subject of a lot of scrutiny over the years. In the eyes of many, the 2020 NBA bubble was some of the purest basketball the world had ever seen. There were no outside distractions, no homecourt advantage, just pure hoops.
However, for those same reasons, some feel as though the bubble and related championship weren't the same as a real ring. Given that teams didn't have to travel or fight for wins on the road, the championship has continued to be discredited. Time and time again, the term "bubble championship" is used as an insult.
Former coach and Hall of Fame inductee George Karl recently took to Twitter to take some shots at the LA Lakers and their bubble championship. Unsurprisingly, this led to quite the heated back-and-forth between the former Coach of the Year and the Lakers nation.
It all started this week when a LA Lakers fan page on Twitter accused head coach Darvin Ham of being the worst coach in the history of the NBA. That didn't sit too well with Karl, who took to Twitter to respond, saying that there's no coach in the league more equipped to handle the team than Ham.
He quickly realized that he had opened himself up to plenty of trolls online, something that he even seemed to welcome.
The next day, Karl woke up to a bunch of angry messages. He then went on the offensive Tuesday morning, taking aim at the LA Lakers and their troll community.
LA Lakers fans fire back at George Karl
As fans were quick to point out, back in the day, Karl was less than popular with some of his own players during his time as a coach. In his book "Furious George," Karl ripped Kenyon Martin (K-Mart), which prompted the NBA vet to call Karl the worst coach he's ever played for.
Similarly, Hall of Famer Gary Payton felt the same way about Karl and expressed it during an appearance on Kenyon Martin's podcast.
The two men discussed how Karl's assistant coach was the one who kept the team together and talked players down, even when they were furious at Karl. Payton said:
“I wanted to beat his (Karl's) head in, you know what I’m saying? But it was Grgurich who [talked me down]. You got to understand, Grgurich came from [coaching] guys like that at UNLV, so he knew how to get with us. He always went and recruited guys like ourselves, coming from neighborhoods, where he knew we just needed to be let loose.
"Don’t put all that boundaries on us. Man, let us get loose, let us do what we got to do! And that’s why we all love him to death because he knew what we needed. I get it because some nights on them teams, you’re gonna to want to kill somebody, you’re gonna want to kill somebody.”
You can see the two legends' comments in the video above, with the quote regarding Karl coming shortly before the half-hour mark.
