The Purple & Gold have been through the gamut of bad labels from ‘washed,’ ‘confused,’ and ‘with a championship identity.’ But after the Los Angeles Lakers lost to the defending champions with a 43-point deficit, the second highest score-gap after a 49-point defeat to Dallas in 2017, they got a new nickname. Colin Cowherd obviously wasn’t going to hold back. But his comparison to a fake luxury item is kicking down a team that’s now facing a season-ending injury to their superstar.

The Lakers were already down by almost 30 points when Luka Doncic suffered the grade 2 hamstring strain in the third quarter. They’re now 0-3 against the Oklahoma City Thunder this season, each time with their flaws on display like a painting in the Louvre.

When the Fox Sports analyst addressed this loss on The Herd, the Lakers had not yet received a diagnosis on Luka. But that didn’t soften up Cowherd. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell a fake Louis Vuitton bag from a real one until they’re next to each other,” Cowherd remarked. “The Lakers moved up in weight class and got knocked out in the first round. Let’s stop thinking the Lakers are a championship team.”

Well, ouch?

In no uncertain terms, he calls the Lakers a fake championship team next to the reigning champs. In late March, it appeared that the team had finally found the much-talked about championship identity. They had LakeShow believing they could actually win a title. But the game on April 2 completely shattered that assumption.

Cowherd’s critique centered on the Thunder’s systematic dismantling of Luka Doncic, who struggled to a 3-of-10 shooting performance and six turnovers before exiting in the third quarter. According to Cowherd, the Thunder made it a mission to “humble the Lakers and go after Luka to get SGA the MVP,” hunting the Lakers star and Austin Reaves on every defensive possession.

Lakers’ problems existed before Luka Doncic’s injury

It’s hard to look past Colin Cowherd’s harsh criticism. OKC has one of the highest ratings to force turnovers in the league. But the Lakers falling for it showed their recent improvements have not fixed their old problem.

The numbers from the contest back his claims. Cowherd noted that OKC players shot a blistering 70% when guarded by Reaves and 65% when guarded by Doncic. “LeBron was minus 37, a non-factor, only took seven shots,” Cowherd added.

He hints that this game could raise alarm bells for the new Lakers owner, Mark Walters who is fresh off the Dodgers winning the World Series. Cowherd believes Walters might see the clear difference in culture between his new NBA team, and the Thunder and Dodgers. “When you put them up against the heavyweight champ, the new ownership group looks at LeBron and wonders, ‘Oh, this is a real champion and we’re not close.’”

The Lakers suffered a double whammy with Doncic’s hamstring injury along with that blowout. He was leading the league in scoring, minutes, and usage rate. Cowherd said what a lot of fans noticed, that Luka’s workload contributed to his injury.

“It wasn’t a collision. It’s a soft tissue issue,” Cowherd explained. “At halftime they were working on it, his body just collapsed in the third quarter and that’s all those minutes… He not only in March had his biggest minutes per game average, he leads the NBA in usage rate by a mile.”

The fallout from that is massive. Not only is he injured, the Lakers’ postseason is in jeopardy. They have a very short gap to learn how to play without Doncic’s high scoring volume.

Cowherd also claims that Doncic’s MVP campaign has effectively ended as he won’t meet the 65-game threshold. But he’s saying that before Luka’s agent, Bill Duffy declared they’d appeal for an ‘extraordinary circumstance challenge,’ to consider the two games he missed for the birth of his second daughter in Slovenia. But whether he gets MVP or not, Cowherd doesn’t see the Lakers beating this OKC squad.

The Thunder has made it their policy to wear down the opposing team’s superstars, i.e. Doncic and Reaves. Without them finding a counter to that, fixing their defense on transitions, and reducing turnovers, the ‘Fake Louis Vuitton’ label dangles over the Lakers necks.