The NBA Is Rigged

Ah, the good old hot take. The necessary evil of the sports world. Through the good ones, the bad ones, and the downright atrocious ones, we once again find ourselves racking our brains trying to figure out how some people come up with this nonsense. But today, I've done the brain racking for you and found some of the hottest NBA takes on the internet. NBA Finals Today's video is sponsored by Liquid IV. This summer, stay focused and fueled with Liquid IV. With 2x faster hydration than water alone and 3x the electrolytes of traditional sports drinks, Liquid IV is ready to change the way you stay hydrated. Their hydrating powder contains 5 essential vitamins and comes in these super convenient packages. This time of year I'm playing a lot of basketball, a lot of golf, and Liquid IV is by far the quickest and easiest way for me to stay hydrated throughout the day. I'm rocking with their Lemon Lime and Strawberry Lemonade Electrolyte Drink Mixes. Just crack one open, mix it up, and you're ready to go. And right now, Liquid IV has a crazy sweepstakes going on. All you have to do is click on the link in the description below to enter in a chance to win 1 year of free Liquid IV hydration multipliers. Check it out guys, enter in the sweepstakes and stay fueled with Liquid IV. With the NBA Finals upon us, I thought to myself, what better time to take a look at some hot takes. Per usual, I immediately regretted this decision. But it had to be done. So let's jump right in. Now, our first take has been around for decades. And regardless of how insane it is, fans continue to say that the NBA is rigged and scripted. And to that I say, what? First of all, reality is stranger than fiction. The best way to create incredible, captivating moments in sports would be to not script them. You think some dude rigged Kevin Durant eviscerating his calf in front of tens of millions of people? Or what about the Nuggets just sweeping the Lakers? Wouldn't it make infinitely more sense to allow most series to go into 6 or 7 games for more revenue? We had a very real chance at a Celtics-Lakers finals this season. In what universe do the script writers not choose that outcome? I wonder what Chris Paul thought when he got the script and saw that Luka Doncic was gonna walk him like a dog on his way to his 87th second round exit. If the NBA was truly rigged, why on earth would the most lucrative franchise in the league have virtually no success over the last 20 years? Oh, your team is one of the 29 teams that didn't win a championship this season? It couldn't be that they just weren't good enough. It's because the basketball overlords didn't have it in the script. The biggest suspicion comes from the way refs officiate the games, handing out more fouls to one team than another, making odd calls during crucial points in the game, and believe me brothers, I'm right there with you. If I had a dollar for every suspect call I saw in an NBA game, I'd have enough money to start my own franchise to complain about. But that's just the nature of sports. Sometimes things go your way, sometimes they don't. As much as we would like for refs to be mindless robots who get every call correct, they're human just like us, and they make mistakes. This guy says the NBA is colluding to get the Lakers into the playoffs. Well then I guess the NBA also colluded to get them swept in the conference finals? I know it's tough to watch your team lose, but of all the excuses we can make as fans, can we please stop resorting to this one? This is a bad take. Now this next take comes from my man Bill Simmons, who had this to say about this year's Nuggets team. Now when I first heard this, I thought that can't be true. But it actually might be. Of course there's no way to know for sure, but going back through the last 8 teams to make the NBA finals, the 2023 Nuggets do look like possibly the best team. Now this is all just an opinion, but I think this year's Nuggets team would have beaten the 2022 Celtics and Warriors. They would have beaten the 2021 Suns and the 2020 Heat. And they would have probably taken down the 2019 Raptors. The two teams that I think are debatable are the 2020 Lakers and the 2021 Bucs. But if we look at some postseason metrics from these teams, the Nuggets are on pace to being the best team since the 2019 Warriors. In the moment, it may not feel like it, but this Nuggets team is incredible. They beat a loaded Suns team that had the most lethal two man offensive game in the NBA. They swept a Lakers team that beat the defending champs. And they've done it all in historic fashion. The 2023 Nuggets may just be the best team since the 2019 Warriors. The eye test backs this up, and the stats do as well. Now this next take comes from a fan who says that if the Heat become the first team to win a championship as an 8 seed, it automatically becomes the greatest playoff run in NBA history. Well, let's look at some of the greatest, or rather improbable playoff runs throughout the league's history. The 2011 Mavericks are considered by many to have the greatest playoff run of any team. As a 3 seed, the Mavs beat a 48 win Blazers team. They beat the reigning champions in the Lakers and Kobe Bryant. They beat a young 55 win Thunder team. But most importantly, they beat the Miami Heat and their big three in 6 games. A series in which everyone and their mother thought Miami was going to win. But one of the most overlooked runs was back in 1995 when the Houston Rockets won an NBA championship as a 6 seed, currently the lowest seed to ever win a title. If some of y'all aren't familiar with this playoff run, it's almost hard to believe what this team pulled off. Because on their way to a championship that postseason, Houston beat a 60 win Jazz team with Malone and Stockton, a 59 win Suns team with two all stars in Charles Barkley and Dan Marley, a 62 win Spurs team featuring the league MVP in David Robinson, and a 57 win Magic team with Shaq and Penny. A few years ago, I made a video on the most difficult championships ever won, and the Rockets title in 1995 was ranked number one. In fact, if we add up the total amount of regular season wins from all the teams the Rockets beat that postseason, we get a whopping 238 wins. Compare that with the 2011 Mavericks and this year's Heat, as well as some other metrics, and it's clear that the Rockets had a much more difficult path to a championship. But the 95 Rockets did have a solid squad surrounding Hakeem, with players like Clyde Drexler, Vernon Maxwell, Kenny Smith, Sam Purcell. This was a good team. The 2023 Heat, however, have absolutely no business even being in the finals. It's literally Jimmy, Bam, and the Undraftables. Even the Mavericks in 2011 are a criminally underrated team. They were the three seed going into the playoffs with 57 wins. They had an awesome core of players, and they were easily one of the best teams in the league that season. They just had to make it past the heavy favorite to win it all. This year's Heat team was never favored in the postseason. From the very first series, they were expected to get sent home, and two of their core players have virtually sat the entire playoffs. So between the 1995 Rockets and the 2023 Heat, it's close. The Rockets had a more difficult path, but the Heat were expected to have absolutely no chance at all. You could make a great argument that if the Heat win a championship this year, it would be the greatest playoff run in NBA history. And so this is a good take. And our last take comes from the legend himself, Mike Breen. During Game 1 of the NBA Finals, Breen had a take about Nikoli Jokic that some people didn't really appreciate, and one of those people was in the booth with him. Now, Mike Breen has watched a lot of basketball. He knows the game, and as much as this take seems like a reach, is it really? Breen says that Jokic shoots like Dirk, which is about the highest praise a big man can get, and the numbers support this. Well, kind of. On short jumpers, Jokic is historically efficient. Both Dirk and Jokic are equally as deadly with their long jumpers, and Dirk is a noticeably better three-point shooter. But there's context missing here, because Nikoli Jokic only shoots 39% of his shots from outside 10 feet, whereas Dirk shot a whopping 77% of his shots from outside 10 feet. As efficient as the Joker is, Dirk is the gold standard for a shooting big. Breen also said Jokic passes the ball like magic. And sure, Jokic isn't the engine to the most exciting show in all of basketball, but in terms of moving the rock and getting open looks for his teammates, Jokic does pass like magic. In my opinion, Magic Johnson is still the greatest passer the game has ever seen. Jokic isn't quite that, but if you were to give your top 5 passers in NBA history, who would be on your list? Magic, Steve Nash, LeBron James, Chris Paul, Jason Kidd, maybe you got John Stockton, Larry Bird, Isaiah Thomas, but Nikoli Jokic is undoubtedly in this discussion. And the last comparison that Breen gave was that Jokic rebounds like Moses Malone. And this is where Mark Jackson really lost it, as if the statement was a massive reach, because it kind of is. Moses Malone was a 6-time rebounding champion, arguably the greatest rebounder of all time. Moses had an 8-year stretch where he averaged 15 rebounds a game. Jokic can rebound with the best in the league, but he's not quite the board machine that Moses was. So in Breen's defense, Jokic can almost pass like magic, he's nearly the shooter Dirk was, and he's not quite the rebounder Moses Malone was. So although it's a bit of a stretch, I do like this take. But unfortunately, that's all the racking my brain can handle in one sitting. But y'all know the drill, leave a comment with your hot take, and as usual, the hotter, the better. Or worse. Hope you all enjoyed, and as always, until next time.