Introducing ‘Hoopertheticals’
Now available on NBA Campfire are our first edition of Hoopertheticals, a downloadable product for basketball fans who want to think about AND talk about the sport they love from outside of the box. And in order to give you a peak at what you’re getting yourself into if you shell out the five bucks — seriously, it’s only five bucks for 60 prompts! — I’ve gone ahead and provided my own personal answers to three of the questions you’ll come across if you make the purchase.
Time Machine Tickets
If you could travel back in time to have been at four different NBA games throughout league history, what four games would you pick? Here is the only caveat: You can only see any given NBA team once.
Two notes before we get to the answers:
This is one of the exercises I used to do in my head as a child who was bored out of his mind in math class. What NBA Finals series would I go to if I had a time machine and an unlimited budget to be able to travel and get tickets to all of the games? If I could have season tickets to any team during any season, which would it be? If I could pick one game from each round of the Playoffs to go to, what games throughout the entire history of the NBA would I attend? Needless to say, I was a strange kid who stopped being good at math after 6th grade.
I actually did this exercise twice, because as you’ll soon see, my first time around yielded a result where I would be seeing four NBA Finals games, which is both expected and totally reasonable, but not quite as fun or creative of an answer as I hoped to provide you. So while Response #1 is comprised of four NBA Finals matchups, I made certain that Response #2 included no Finals games whatsoever.
Response #1
2016 NBA Finals, Game 7 - Cleveland Cavaliers at Golden State Warriors
It’s worth noting that I had a full blown panic attack in my living room during the final five minutes of this game from my living room, so there’s a very real chance that being inside of Oracle Arena for this game would’ve actually killed me. Not even joking. My heart might’ve exploded inside of my chest, meaning my carcass would’ve been stretchered out of the arena as the Cavaliers celebrated the city of Cleveland’s first championship in 52 years. But if I actually managed to survive through a four-minute long scoring drought, plus The Block, The Shot, The Stop, and LeBron’s free throw to ice it with 11 seconds left, this would go down as indisputably one of the best nights of my entire life.
2013 NBA Finals, Game 6 - San Antonio Spurs at Miami Heat
If Game 7 of the 2016 Finals was a 10/10 on the, Oh God, this game might actually kill Sonny, then Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals comes in at a 9.5/10. I never quite loved the Heat like I did the Cavaliers, but my adoration for LeBron James was still white hot in 2013, and being in the building for one of the most improbable wins in recent NBA Finals history is a prospect too good to pass up. Plus, by my calculation, there are five players who, at a given point during this game, could’ve claimed this to be the best or most important performance of their career: Tim Duncan (for a 1st half performance that was bringing back memories of vintage Timmy D), LeBron James (for an absolutely bonkers stretch to start the 4th quarter), Tony Parker (for two seemingly back-breaking buckets late in the 4th quarter), Ray Allen (for the corner three heard round the world), and Chris Bosh (not only for the rebound that set up the Allen three, but also for a defensive masterclass punctuated by the game-sealing block in overtime).
1998 NBA Finals, Game 6 - Chicago Bulls at Utah Jazz
Though it wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing game by any means, having a seat inside the Delta Center for Michael Jordan’s final game in a Chicago Bulls uniform is impossible to say no to. Now at the time in 1998, as a six-year-old, I would’ve been decked out in Bulls gear, cheering hard for MJ because basically every kid of the 90s wanted to Be Like Mike. The 34-year-old version of me has slightly different feelings about these two teams. Now that’s not to say I would’ve been rooting for the Jazz either. All these years later, I’ve come to realize that Hakeem Olajuwon was actually my favorite player of the 1990s, but we’ll get to The Dream in a second.
1984 NBA Finals, Game 4 - Boston Celtics at Los Angeles Lakers
Celtics vs. Lakers? Bird vs. Magic? The game that simultaneously raised the level of hatred between Boston and LA (remember, this was the McHale Clotheslines Rambis Game) and sent the league rocketing off into its next era? Yeah, sign me up.
Response #2
2016 Regular Season - Utah Jazz at Los Angeles Lakers
I told this story on the NBA Campfire Podcast episode devoted to this game, but I’ll repeat the shorter version here: I went into the final night of the 2015-16 regular season adamant that I would be watching the Golden State Warriors win their 73rd game of the year, barely having even a sliver of interest in watching Kobe’s final game, which I figured would resemble MJ’s from 13 years earlier. Oh boy was I wrong. Kobe fucked around and quadrupled Mike’s final game point total (15), putting 60 points on the board in front of a superstar-studded crowd at Staples, making literally every big shot down the stretch when it was clear that his gas tank was on E. That doesn’t matter when we’re talking about a competitor the likes of the Black Mamba, and while some would surely disagree, this will always be the game I remember Kobe Bryant for.
2007 Eastern Conference Finals, Game 5 - Cleveland Cavaliers at Detroit Pistons
If you’re making a list of all of the games that could be considered the defining games in the career of LeBron James – and whoa nelly that sucker is lengthy – this is the earliest one on the list. At just 22 years old, The King took his throne inside of the Palace of Auburn Hills, scoring 29 of Cleveland’s final 30 points, willing the Cavaliers to a double OT victory against the Pistons to take a 3-2 lead in the East Finals. Oh, and by the way, do you know who played the second-most minutes for Cleveland in Game 5? Sasha Pavlovic. Sasha Fucking Pavlovic, guys!
1995 Western Conference Finals, Game 2 - Houston Rockets at San Antonio Spurs
The defining game in the career of Hakeem Olajuwon, when The Dream took it to David Robinson so badly that it had MVP voters wondering in the moment, Wait, did we really fuck this vote up? Have you ever had the nightmare where you’re running away from someone or something, and you can’t quite keep your feet? Or you keep running into a dead end? David Robinson’s version of this nightmare is being put in a never-ending spin cycle because Hakeem Olajuwon keeps Dream Shaking him so badly.
1986 Eastern Conference 1st Round, Game 2 - Chicago Bulls at Boston Celtics
It’s been quite a while since I’ve attended church, but if I go to this game I get to see God disguised as Michael Jordan, so I assume my soul will be properly cleansed afterward.
Dual-Sport Superstar
Imagine that upon reading this prompt, Stephen Curry has retired from the National Basketball Association. During his retirement press conference, Steph makes an unexpected announcement… He’ll now be pursuing a career as a professional golfer.
In only three year’s time, Steph has actually managed to transform himself into an above average professional golfer. He’s more or less the equal of someone like a Brian Harman, or a Gary Woodland, or a Kurt Kitayama. But then, in his fifth year on the tour, Curry improbably wins The Masters, with Jim Nantz saying at tournament’s end, “From the brilliance of the hardwood… to the majesty of Augusta. Legends aren’t confined to one arena, and today, Stephen Curry joins a different kind of immortality.”
In your eyes, would this make Stephen Curry the greatest athlete of all-time?
Okay, this is admittedly a fairly tricky question that requires some high-level mental gymnastics, so let’s go step-by-step, easing our way into this pool together. First and foremost, to answer this question, we need to consider where Stephen Curry ranks all-time in the NBA, and just for the sake of clarity, we’re talking about Skill Level + Accomplishments + Legacy.
In 2022, following the unveiling of the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team, ESPN’s “expert panel” ranked all of the players who made the cut for this ceremonial squad, and Curry finished 16th in that vote. However, this was before Curry’s fourth NBA Title, his first NBA Finals MVP, and over 1,000 three-pointers shy of his current total (4,248).
Personally, I have Curry 10th all-time, though every time I spend more than an hour thinking about my Greatest Players of All-Time list something inevitably changes. Basically, in my opinion, it’s fair to say that Stephen Curry is somewhere between the 8th and 12th best player in NBA history.
Now it’s worth noting that when having the Greatest Athlete of All-Time debate, it’s a virtual certainty that when either Michael Jordan or LeBron James comes up, it will be mentioned that, A) MJ played minor league baseball, and B) LeBron was an All-State wide receiver in high school who had numerous D-I offers. And yes, for the record, if we’re talking Greatest Athlete of All-Time, those two things are worth mentioning, just like it’s worth mentioning that both Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson excelled in pro football and pro baseball.
But if Curry were to win The Masters, doesn’t that trump just about anything else anyone with a dual-sport background is bringing to the table?
According to Bradley Turner of the Kaiser University College of Golf, these are the 25 greatest golfers of all-time: Gene Sarazen, Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Billy Casper, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Nick Faldo, Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Tiger Woods, Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Scottie Scheffler.
Now what’s interesting about this collection of golfers is that 18 of the 25 players listed above have won The Masters. That’s right. Over two-thirds of the 25 greatest golfers ever have at least one Green Jacket in their closet, making it something close to a prerequisite to be considered a member of this elite club. The only ones who didn’t are as follows:
Walter Hagen - Won all 11 of his majors before The Masters Tournament was even founded.
Bobby Jones - Played in The Masters 12 times, finished in the top 20 only twice.
Lee Trevino - Two Top 10’s in 20 Masters appearances. Also had a cameo in Happy Gilmore, but I suppose that’s irrelevant for the sake of this conversation.
Greg Norman - Played in The Masters 23 times, finished in the Top 10 in nine of those tournaments, and he finished in the top three six times.
Ernie Els - 23 Masters appearances, six Top 10 finishes including five in a row from 2000 to 2004.
Brooks Koepka - 11 Masters appearances, two-time runner-up and three-time Top 10 finisher.
Justin Thomas - 11 Masters appearances, two Top 10’s.
So what does it mean if Stephen Curry, the 10th greatest basketball player ever, has also won The Masters, a tournament that Greg Norman, Lee Trevino and Ernie Els – a trio of golfers with 68 PGA tour wins and 12 majors between them – have never won?
In my book, that means Stephen Curry is the greatest athlete to ever live.
Pick-a-Poster
In an unusual sort of Freaky Friday situation, you get the opportunity to body swap with one NBA player, but there’s one catch… You only get to live in this player’s body for one past poster dunk. That’s it. You have total control of this player’s faculties from the moment their team takes possession offensively, and you get sent back into your body immediately following the post-dunk celebration.
What player are you picking, and what specific poster dunk are you choosing to experience?
Let’s start with 10 – yes, ten – runner-up choices before getting to my pick:
Dominique Wilkins on Larry Bird - Remember in The Shawshank Redemption when Red says of Andy, “it looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over.” I like to imagine that when Nique saw Larry Bird standing between him and the basketball, he thought the same thing, only in this case, Dominique Wilkins was a motherfucking hurricane.
Shawn Kemp on Alton Lister - Flipping the perspective around here, there are very few moments in NBA history more embarrassing than Alton Lister being on the receiving end of this dunk, and then having Shawn Kemp point at you as he starts to backpedal away.
Scottie Pippen on Patrick Ewing - For my money, this may be the single-most mean-spirited dunk in NBA history. Pip wanted to put Patrick Ewing in a fucking body bag, and if dunking on him didn’t do the job, steamrolling him to the floor surely would. And by the way, Pip telling Knicks superfan Spike Lee “sit your ass down” after putting New York’s best player on a poster is absolutely sinister behavior.
Baron Davis on Andrei Kirilenko - This dunk is an absolute banger, and the crowd reaction at the Oracle is top-tier, but Baron Davis’ detonation on Andrei Kirilenko is docked points because I’m not too fond of showing off my tits to a whole goddamn basketball arena as part of my celebration.
LeBron James on Kevin Garnett - LEBRON JAMES, WITH NO REGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE!
Derrick Rose on Goran Dragic - Why Goran Dragic thought he could jump with Derrick Rose is one of the great NBA mysteries, right up there with ‘Was the 1985 Draft Lottery rigged?’, ‘Did David Stern secretly suspend MJ in 1993?’ and ‘What is Victor Wembanyama’s actual height?’
Blake Griffin on Kendrick Perkins - I just love how Blake bounces off of Perk like he’s a pinball bouncing off one of flippers, but still manages to cram home one of the most diabolical and disgusting slam dunks in NBA history. And hey, while we’re at it, let’s put some more respect on the name of the Lob City Clippers.
DeAndre Jordan on Brandon Knight - One of my favorite things to do with this dunk is watch a different player's reaction to this hardwood homicide each time. By the way, Hardwood Homicide would make for a great title for an action comedy film about a murder during a basketball game. I’m more than willing to pen the script.
Anthony Edwards on John Collins - A dunk so audacious and so violent that both participants were injured on the play. Both men have since recovered from their physical injuries, but John Collins’ feelings will forever remain shattered into one-hundred thousand pieces.
Giannis Antetokounmpo over Chris Paul - By far the highest stakes dunk included among the runners up. And remember, this was in the midst of a four-game stretch in which the Bucks overcame an 0-2 deficit to win the NBA Finals behind Giannis, who averaged 37 points, 13 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 blocks per game in those four wins.
But of course, there can only be one winner. And we had to go all the way to Sydney, Australia to find it.
Vince Carter over Frederic Weis - No, this dunk didn’t take place during an NBA game, but the Summer Olympics is certainly part of pro basketball canon, and when you’re the main character of a play that is known as “The Dunk of Death” – or “Le Dunk De La Mort” in Frederic Weis’ native French – you top a list like this one.
