Hardwood Paroxysm Presents: NBA Midseason Super-Overreactionizer

Doctors amputate Blake Griffin’s right arm, and everyone loses their collective minds

By Daniel Lewis (@minutemandan) — Hardwood Paroxysm

Have you seen Blake’s arm lately? What if the staph infection spreads, and they have to amputate his arm from the elbow down like some crazy medic from the Civil War?

“Sorry Blake, the infection has returned,” he says, pulling the machete out of a sheath and laying the edge on his arm. “Here, bite this stick, I’ll drink some whiskey real quick and we’ll remove the infection. Swish.”

Just like that, the Clippers franchise player is a two-legged, one-armed shell of himself, and their title aspirations thud to the ground as Griffin’s formerly attached right forearm thuds to the ground, as the fingers twitch from the severed nerves.

When Griffin returns to the team to hand-deliver the bad news, the front office goes into nuclear meltdown. Kia cancels their contract with Blake, citing, “Irrecoverable differences” between the two parties. Chris Paul, upon realizing that the one player that was capable of taking the team far into the playoffs, demands a trade to another contender.

DeAndre Jordan takes the news harder than all, outside of Griffin’s family. The shock of seeing a one-handed Blake, his longtime friend, sends him into shock and he announces that he will retire at the end of the season, having lost his passion for playing basketball. His contract expires, and he takes up a job helping drive shuttle buses to the airport from a parking lot near the Houston airport.

With the devastating news, the team crumbles and collapses to finish the season. A 10-game losing streak sees them fall out of the playoffs, and by April, the team is in tatters. Doc Rivers has no choice but to start a lineup of Austin Rivers-JJ Redick-Matt Barnes-Glen Davis-Spencer Hawes and play them 40 minutes a night, as the remainder of the team has lost the will to live. Chris Paul and Jamal Crawford come to the games, their faces blank as they try to digest the reality of what has happened.

Having watched his newly acquired franchise crumble to pieces in a span of weeks, Steve Ballmer agrees to sell the team to Floyd Mayweather, fresh off his historic victory over Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather purchases the team for $750 million, and vows to move the team to Las Vegas within two years. Adam Silver and the rest of the owners oppose the decision, but upon meeting with Mayweather and his team in person for a hearing to approve the sale, suddenly have a change of heart.

On draft day, Doc Rivers trades Paul to the Celtics for Gerald Wallace, Avery Bradley and Evan Turner, returns the Clippers 2015 first-round draft pick, sends the 2016 Brooklyn Nets first-round pick, and himself back to Boston. The franchise drafts Montrezl Harrell, who blows out his Achilles’ one week before the regular season while crossing Las Vegas Boulevard for a promotional event with Mayweather at the MGM Grand, further crippling the freshly renamed Las Vegas Money.

This truly is the darkest timeline.

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