The 73 strangest stories of another extremely strange NBA season

The Toronto Raptors are NBA champions. And that’s just one of the strangest moments from an incredibly strange NBA season.

The Raptors winning it all means the two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors did not complete their three-peat. The Warriors not ending the season hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy is surprising, but not necessarily all that strange. It’s incredibly difficult to win three straight championships, after all. There’s a reason it’s only been done three times since the ABA-NBA merger.

And even if the Warriors coming up short is not in itself all that weird, the long journey we took that ended with the Raptors capturing the first title in franchise history featured a whole lot of wackiness. The NBA might like to fancy itself as “Where Amazing Happens,” but those of us that follow this league all year long know that it’s often so much stranger than that.

That’s why we spent this season tracking all of the unusual occurrences, all of the awkward moments, all of the nonsense narratives, all of the shocking scoops, and all of the extraordinary events. In the space below, we’ll walk you through the 73 strangest stories of another extremely strange NBA season — one for each year of the league’s existence. Enjoy!

73. DeMarcus Cousins shocks everyone by signing a one-year deal with the Warriors for the taxpayer’s mid-level exception.

72. Trae Young gets ejected from an early March game against the Bulls … for staring at Kris Dunn after nailing a 35-foot pull-up 3 in his grill.

71. Adam Silver decides to unilaterally add Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki to the 2019 All-Star Game because they’re old. Or something. Wade had already announced his intention to retire and was basically on a yearlong farewell tour, complete with jersey swaps and custom t-shirts; but Nowitzki had been insisting all season that he hadn’t made his decision yet. Silver, though, basically said (paraphrasing), “Look at that dude run. He’s definitely retiring,” and added him to the game anyway.

70. After signing a two-year, $40 million deal with his hometown Chicago Bulls, Jabari Parker lays it all out in the open, stating, “They don’t pay players to play defense.” Parker proceeds to live up to that statement until he’s traded to the Wizards at the deadline.

69. During a mid-January game between the Nets and Celtics, YES Network and NBC Sports Boston execute an announcer trade, with Sarah Kustok joining the Boston broadcast and Brian Scalabrine joining Brooklyn’s. Mere seconds into the swap, Scalabrine jokes, “The last time you guys traded with Boston, it didn’t work out so well.”

68. After looking like hot garbage for much of the season (and much of his first few seasons) and getting DNP-ed in 24 of the previous 31 games, Frank Kaminsky suddenly morphs into an indispensable bench weapon for the Hornets as they attempt to make a(n ill-fated) playoff push, averaging 13 points, 5 rebounds and 1.6 3s per game and cracking the 20-point mark four times in 21 games after doing so only 22 times in 261 career games prior to that point.

67. In late February, Knicks coach David Fizdale directions at least a portion of the blame for his team’s general suckitude at his players’ addiction to Fortnite.

66. Patrick Beverley and Lou Williams are asked what more they could have done to slow down Kevin Durant in Game 6 of their first-round loss to the Warriors.

65. After a young fan sitting court-side at a Nuggets-Thunder game lightly shoves Russell Westbrook, Russ proceeds to deliver a lecture to the boy and his father about, like, not doing that.

64. The Spurs completely blow the doors off the Raptors in Kawhi Leonard’s first game back in San Antonio after whatever the hell it was that happened last season. The game also features DeMar DeRozan’s first career triple-double.

63. After going 21-31 through the first 52 games of the season, the Magic suddenly turn into the league’s best defense and finish the year on a 21-9 sprint to make the playoffs for the first time since they traded Dwight Howard.

62. Rasheed Wallace gets hired as the head coach of a high school basketball team in North Carolina, and it flies almost completely under the radar.

61. Cavs guard Jordan Clarkson goes to the line in the fourth quarter of a random mid-March game against the 76ers and misses back-to-back free-throws, seemingly awarding Philadelphia fans a free Frosty. But one of the refs calls a lane violation on Boban Marjanovic, robbing the fans of their Frosties and leading to a hysterically-laughing Clarkson connecting on his third free-throw chance.

60. Dwight Howard injures his butt.

59. Gregg Popovich gets tossed 63 seconds into a game against the Nuggets, then crashes Michael Malone’s postgame press conference.

Also, after being informed that former Spurs assistant (and current Sixers coach) Brett Brown called him the greatest coach who ever lived, Popovich says that Brown is a kiss-a** and full of s*** and that’s why the Spurs got rid of him.

58. Ahead of his retirement, Cavs forward Channing Frye answers a question about how he would like to be remembered thusly:

"“I was a great teammate and I love all my teammates, and then No. 2 is I’m a champion. So I don’t care if anyone says I suck, because I don’t. If they’re like well, you’re not playing now, that happens to everybody. Listen, I’m rich, I’m a champion, I’m 35 and retiring and I’m living a great life. So, if you think I suck, I’ll see you at L.A. fitness in a year, motherf–ker.”"

And then later:

57. Joel Embiid and Eric Bledsoe engage in a mid-game dodgeball match.

https://twitter.com/DimeUPROXX/status/1113960377606385665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

56. For some reason, Pacers star Victor Oladipo stares at a wall in Bankers Life Fieldhouse prior to every game. Before a game in November, Oladipo finds his teammates waiting for him in the hallway, where they are already staring at his wall.

55. After former teammate Nikola Mirotic is traded from the Pelicans to the Bucks, Bulls center Robin Lopez laments that Mirotic will now have to play with Lopez’s brother, Brook. “I feel bad for Niko,” Lopez says. “He has to play with Brookie. You know what’s even worse? He already got the superior experience of playing with me. And now he has to go and play with Brook. It’s like living in Fresno and having to move to Clovis.”

54. The most random beef of the 2019 playoffs: Ben Simmons vs. Jared Dudley! Dudley makes a comment that is much more innocuous than it is subsequently made out to be about how Simmons is great in transition but average in the half-court, and so the Nets have to make him a half-court player. Simmons responds by essentially saying, What the hell is a Jared Dudley? Simmons then dominates Game 3 in both transition and the half-court. Simmons and Dudley repeatedly jaw at each other throughout Game 4, which erupts into a brawl (or at least what passes for an NBA brawl these days) after Dudley takes exception to a hard foul committed by Joel Embiid.

The Sixers ultimately win their series against the Nets, but Simmons spends the majority of the second round proving Dudley right about his limitations as a half-court player.

53. The Cavaliers rename their arena, switching from one sketchy mortgage company sponsor to another.

52. Amid burbling rumors that he’ll leave the Clippers for the Lakers, Doc Rivers snuffs out all talk that he’s leaving by revealing that he had secretly signed an extension to remain with the Clippers beyond this season.

51. Josh Richardson gets ejected for throwing his shoe into the stands. Taj Gibson tries to block a shot using his shoe. Patrick Beverley draws a charge while holding his shoe.

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1064327189494001665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/Timberwolves/status/1074836081684688897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

50. Stephen Curry falls flat on his butt trying to dunk late in a game against the Lakers. Curry loses control of the ball and gets a hand-off in the corner, from which he airballs an open 3.

49. Sixers forward Mike Scott dives into the stands chasing after a loose ball and proceeds to take a sip of a fan’s beer.

https://twitter.com/YahooSports/status/1107372961600864258?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

48. News breaks that injured Knicks star Kristaps Porzingis has requested a trade, and he is actually traded within hours of said request. (It later emerges that Porzingis and the Knicks had been headed toward a breakup for weeks — months? — but the initial version of the story is funnier.)

47. Nikola Jokic participates in the Skills Challenge at All-Star Weekend, defeating Nikola Vucevic in a battle of the Nikolas, but ultimately not winning the crown. Asked after the event what the most difficult part was, Jokic replies, “Running.”

46. It’s officially The Year of Found Footage/Overheard Audio in the NBA. De’Aaron Fox dunks on Nikola Vucevic and tells him not to jump next time. Jusuf Nurkic and Ben Simmons talk some trash. Steve Kerr is sick of Draymond’s s**t.

45. After Mario Hezonja misses his first game against his former team (the Magic) due to food poisoning, Knicks coach Fizdale promises Hezonja that the next time the teams play in Orlando, Hezonja will get the start. Fizdale keeps his promise by starting Hezonja, who proceeds to score a career-high 29 points to go along with 10 rebounds and 5 assists.

44. Jamal Murray drops a career-high 48 points against the Celtics. With the Nuggets leading by seven points and dribbling out the clock, Murray launches a deep 3 to try to push his total over 50. Kyrie Irving responds by launching the ball into the crowd. This is somehow not even close to the weirdest Celtics-related story of the season.

43. For the second consecutive year, the Rockets get into a fight with one of the L.A. teams at Staples Center. (This time, it’s in LeBron James’ home debut.) Brandon Ingram, Rajon Rondo, and Chris Paul are all suspended as a result. Again, this is somehow nowhere close to the strangest Rockets or Lakers-related story of the season.

42. Though they avoid becoming the first team ever to top $300 million in salary expenditures, the Thunder (seriously) rack up a luxury tax bill exceeded by only that of the Warriors, paying in excess of $60 million in tax for a team whose season would ultimately end in the first round.

41. Gordon Hayward films a gender reveal video alongside his pregnant wife and two daughters in which he appears disappointed that the couple’s third child will also be a girl. Asked by his wife if he’s happy, Hayward responds, “Daddy’s always happy.” While live-streaming himself playing video games on Twitch, Hayward tells Celtics fans he wants them to chant “Daddy’s always happy” during the season and later shows up to a preseason game wearing a “Daddy’s always happy” hat.

40. Pacers fans chant at Brandon Ingram that, “LeBron’s gonna trade you.”

Harrison Barnes later gets traded to the Kings in the middle of a game and is informed of the deal by screaming fans.

39. Everybody and their mother signs apparel deals with Puma. (DeAndre Ayton, Marvin Bagley, Sterling Brown, Vince Carter, DeMarcus Cousins, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Rudy Gay, Danny Green, Kevin Knox, Michael Porter, Terry Rozier, Katie Lou Samuelson, Zhaire Smith, and Jackie Young.)

38. CJ McCollum goes on TV and criticizes the Warriors’ signing of Cousins, stating that he would never chase a ring like that. A fan tweets at McCollum that he should “Win a playoff game then talk,” seemingly referencing the Blazers being swept out of last year’s playoffs. McCollum responds simply:

After the Blazers defeat the Thunder in a first-round game, McCollum is asked if he has anything to say to Jennifer. Jennifer then shows up to Game 2 of the Blazers’ Western Conference Finals series against the Warriors and gets to meet McCollum before tip.

In a related development, Kevin Durant goes on McCollum’s podcast and laughs at the idea that the Blazers should be angry that the Warriors signed Cousins because they aren’t competitors anyway. McCollum proceeds to call Durant’s initial decision to sign with Golden State “soft.” Durant responds in kind, noting, “I just did your f–kin podcast.”

37. After seeing LeBron James leave the team, the Cavaliers have Kevin Love sign his four-year, $120 million contract extension in front of a large group of construction workers, because metaphors.

https://twitter.com/cavs/status/1021786931133337600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

36. During a panel interview at the annual Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, commissioner Adam Silver notes that, “We are living in a time of anxiety. I think it’s a direct result of social media. A lot of players are unhappy.”

35. Yet another bat shows up at a Spurs game at the AT&T Center. After a several minute delay that features San Antonio fans chanting Manu Ginobili’s name, the bat is eventually caught. A few nights later, bats show up at a Spurs game again, and this time the mascot — wearing a Batman shirt and mask — saves the day.

34. The Clippers complete the biggest comeback in NBA postseason history, storming back from 31 points down to beat the Warriors in Game 2 of their first-round series — in Oracle Arena.

33. Damian Lillard begins reporting on NBA reporters’ free agency moves.

32. In the first year of the newly-weighted lottery system, the results go completely haywire with three teams jumping multiple slots to get into the top four picks. Naturally, the Pelicans land the top pick and the right to select Zion Williamson after having to deal with a season-rocking trade request from Anthony Davis — who was originally acquired when the then-Hornets won the lottery following a trade of Chris Paul.

31. Following the tragic shooting death of Los Angeles rapper and producer Nipsey Hussle, Russell Westbrook sets out to record the NBA’s second-ever 20-20-20 triple double as a tribute to Hussle’s affiliation with the Rollin 60s. And then Westbrook, like, actually freaking does it, racking up 20 points, 20 rebounds, and 21 assists in a win over the Lakers.

30. After a 53-win season that ended with a second-round loss to arguably the best team of all time in a hard-fought six-game series, the Rockets lowball Mike D’Antoni in extension talks and start firing assistant coaches one-by-one, seemingly daring D’Antoni to quit.

29. Asked at his introductory press conference what he would want people to know about him, new Raptors forward Kawhi Leonard — who is basically the definition of not a fun guy — responds, “I’m a fun guy,” and proceeds to laugh in the weirdest way humanly possible.

Later in the season, New Balance releases Leonard’s signature shoes and they are about as bland as possible, and the accompanying advertising campaign is all about how Kawhi is kind of bland and boring and not necessarily a fun guy.

28. Enes Kanter gets buried on the bench of an atrocious Knicks team and begins hamming it up in opposing arenas as fans chant his name. Madison Square Garden chants his name as well, and when he finally gets into a game after a string of DNP’s he kisses the Garden floor.

Kanter is waived by the Knicks shortly after the deadline and eventually catches on with the Blazers as Jusuf Nurkic’s backup. After Nurkic goes down for the season, Kanter becomes the starter and fights through a shoulder injury to post some monster numbers against the Thunder and make fun of the old “can’t play Kanter” meme, and then get played off the floor by an actual team that makes it clear you really can’t play Kanter. (The Warriors.)

27. Doc Rivers and Jim Boylen are simultaneously ejected from a game, which is, like, weird.

26. Anticipating a Warriors win in Game 6, the Rockets fly from Houston to Oakland before the Warriors-Clippers series is even over so that they can get their body clocks on West Coast time and get in a practice before the second-round series starts. Doc Rivers says that he’d love to mess up Houston’s travel plans (including those of his son Austin), but the Clippers can’t follow through on that.

25. Serge Ibaka and Marquese Chriss become the first NBA players in years to throw actual haymakers during an on-court fight AND not ask to be held back by their teammates while pretending they want to fight when they really don’t. Ibaka puts Chriss in a chokehold and sternly walks off the floor knowing that he’s definitely getting ejected, while Chriss sort of seems dazed by what happened even though he manages to get in a fight nearly every season.

24. Celtics first-round pick Robert Williams oversleeps and misses his introductory conference call with reporters. A couple of weeks later, Williams loses his wallet for the second time in two days, causing him to miss his flight to Las Vegas Summer League and thus his first practice with the team. The series of events leads to Williams being bestowed the nickname, “Time Lord.”

23. Late in the fourth quarter of a late-season game against the Wizards, Bulls big man Cristiano Felicio forgets to come into the game and has to sprint back into the play, which leads to Wizards guard Chasson Randle drawing a foul inside.

22. The Kings (THE KINGS!) hang around the playoff race for like 80 percent of the season and end up posting their best regular season record since the 2005-06 season. Naturally, they fire their coach at the end of the year.

21. After the Cavaliers start the season 0-6, they fire coach Tyronn Lue. The Cavs attempt to name assistant coach Larry Drew as the interim coach, but Drew refuses the label and instead insists he is merely the “voice” of the team in an attempt to gain more security from the organization as the head coach. He eventually agrees to a reworked deal to coach the team for the remainder of the season.

20. Searching for a new general manager in the wake of last season’s Bryan Colangelo burner Twitter scandal, the Sixers unsuccessfully try to lure Daryl Morey away from the Rockets. Morey is the mentor and former boss of Sam Hinkie, who was unceremoniously dumped by Philadelphia and replaced by Colangelo.

19. Essentially half the Western Conference bracket tries to tank for specific seeding at the end of the regular season and almost all of the teams screw it up. Most hilariously, the Blazers get a 37-point explosion from rookie Anfernee Simons, which vaults them into a matchup with the Thunder, who swept the Blazers during the regular season. The Blazers then proceed to beat the Thunder 4-1 in their first-round series, because obviously.

18. Late in an overtime game against the Timberwolves, Kevin Durant is fouled on what appears to be a game-tying 3 with four seconds left. But referee Marat Kogut says that Durant was fouled on the floor and waves the basket off.

Steph Curry nails a game-tying 3 on the ensuing inbounds pass, and then he and several teammates point and laugh at Kogut as if he’s an opponent they just clowned on. But the Warriors leave 0.5 seconds on the clock, and Durant fouls Karl-Anthony Towns on the inbounds pass, Towns makes the first free-throw and intentionally misses the second, and the Wolves win the game.

Seemingly every Warrior calls out Kogut in their postgame interviews, but the topper is Draymond Green going on Twitter and seemingly equating Kogut with Tim Donaghy, which of course draws a sizable fine.

17. The 76ers draft Villanova’s Mikal Bridges, whose mother works for the team. Less than an hour later, the Sixers trade Bridges’ rights to the Suns in exchange for the rights to Zhaire Smith and a future first-round pick. (Bridges doesn’t find out about the deal until after he has given an interview in a 76ers hat, talking about how excited he and his family are that he’ll be playing for Philly.) Smith, because he is a 76ers rookie, breaks his foot. While recuperating, Smith eats some chicken at the team facility and later suffers a severe allergic reaction that causes him to be hospitalized and lose 40 pounds. Smith still does not know what actually caused the reaction.

16. After 16 years of building a team that was collectively 156 games under 0.500 during that time, Ernie Grunfeld is finally fired by the Washington Wizards. Almost immediately, ticket sales staffers send emails to multiple former ticket-holders who promised to buy tickets upon Grunfeld’s firing and encourage them to do exactly that.

15. Due to a rare CBA quirk that would have made him a restricted free agent for a second straight year in 2019 had he signed it, former Warriors forward Patrick McCaw refuses to sign his qualifying offer even after going unsigned in restricted free agency. (Golden State offered a two-year, $5 million deal but McCaw declined to sign that, either.) The Cavaliers, seemingly out of sheer pettiness, sign McCaw to a two-year, $6 million offer sheet that was essentially fully non-guaranteed but would have required the Warriors to pay a huge tax bill if they matched it. The Warriors didn’t match, the Cavs waived McCaw and incurred almost no cost, and then McCaw landed with the Raptors, who eventually met the Warriors in the NBA Finals.

14. Raptors mascot Aubrey Graham gives coach Nick Nurse a quick shoulder massage during a playoff game. After Mallory Edens (the daughter of Bucks co-owner Wes Edens) shows up to Game 5 in a Pusha T shirt and the Raptors eventually win, Graham changes his Instagram avatar to a photo of Edens, because that’s not creepy and weird at all.

13. Carmelo Anthony is traded from Oklahoma City to Atlanta in what essentially amounts to a salary dump that still nets the Thunder Dennis Schroder in the deal. The Hawks buy Carmelo out of his contract so he can sign with the Rockets and be teammates with banana buddy Chris Paul. The Rockets are of course coached by Mike D’Antoni, who was run out of New York by Carmelo six years ago.

Melo is seemingly willing to accept a small bench role in Houston, but the Rockets (and Melo) start the season horribly, Melo begins chafing at his reduced role, and he eventually agrees to be sent away from the team while Daryl Morey seeks a trade. He later becomes the second of two salary dumps the Rockets execute by sending a player and cash to the Bulls for essentially nothing in return. (The other is Michael Carter-Williams, who subsequently emerges as an important rotation player for the playoff-bound Magic? I told you it was a weird year.) Despite months of speculation, Melo goes completely unsigned for the rest of the season and his impact is limited to vague Instagram posts and showing up at Dwyane Wade’s final game in one of his trademark weird hats. 

12. That wild James Dolan interview. You know the one.

11. Following his trade request and subsequent absence from the Pelicans’ lineup, Anthony Davis insists on playing in the All-Star Game (and later in New Orleans’ post-break games). At his All-Star press media availability, Davis says all 29 other NBA teams are on his trade list and also notes that whenever he’s traded, he’ll say something nice about New Orleans on Instagram.

10. Draymond Green ignores Kevin Durant’s calls for the ball at the end of regulation against the Clippers and eventually loses control of his dribble, so the Warriors don’t get a shot off. Durant gets angry at Green for not passing him the ball and tensions escalate between the two as Andre Iguodala, DeMarcus Cousins, and later Klay Thompson attempt to calm them down.

It’s soon reported that Green took Durant to task for how his free agency was hanging over the team and called him a “b****h” several times. Green gets suspended by the team for a game.

A few months later, Durant suddenly goes media silent after the Knicks trade Porzingis and open up double-max cap space. Ethan Strauss writes an article at The Athletic where he points out that many people around the team expect Durant to leave, and in his next media session, Durant goes off on Strauss and almost everyone else.

While injured during the Warriors’ run to the Finals, Durant feuds with Chris Broussard in a situation that is honestly too strange to bother explaining.

9. Heat center Hassan Whiteside purchases a $50,000 M16 assault rifle from a Miami-area gun store. Whiteside places the gun in his car and goes back inside the store, but he leaves the car unlocked and the gun is immediately stolen before he even returns to the vehicle. For some reason, the thief shows restraint and decides not to steal the $400,000 unlocked Rolls Royce.

8. The long, strange Markelle Fultz saga takes even more twists and turns. Fultz opens the season as a starter for the Sixers (remember that????) but struggles to gel with Simmons and Embiid. He soon loses his bench minutes to T.J. McConnell, supposedly falls out with his trainer, and shows up in several spectacularly weird in-game video clips include one where he appears to suffer a video-game-like glitch after tying his shoe and another where he bobbles the ball between his hands while shooting a free-throw.

Fultz is eventually diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome and shut down for good until he is shipped off to the Magic for Jonathon Simmons.

7. In early April, Stephen Curry, who had already become the greatest shooter in the history of the NBA, revealed that he had been playing his entire life with blurry vision (due to a condition called Keratoconus that results in the progressive thinning of corneas) and that he’d recently corrected it by getting specialized contact lenses following a 48-of-131 (36.6 percent) shooting slump from behind the 3-point line.

6. After a Game 1 loss to the Warriors that featured some ref shenanigans toward the end, the Rockets leak their internal audit of last year’s Western Conference Finals in which they claim that refs cost them the 2018 NBA title. Rocket nemesis Scott Foster (who used to also be the Warriors’ nemesis and showed up in the top five of a “worst refs” poll conducted by The Athletic) is assigned to referee Game 2 of the series. (Referee assignments are determined ahead of time but the visual is too funny to correct.)

5. The Bulls fire embattled coach Fred Hoiberg and replace him with Jim Boylen, who is immediately … weird. Boylen’s coaching tactics quickly lead to a near-mutiny by some players during a Sunday morning practice (they were apparently upset that he called for two hockey-style line changes during the team’s 56-point loss to the Celtics) and then the formation of a so-called leadership council. The Bulls are still pretty damn bad after Boylen’s hiring but Zach LaVine offers — and is allowed to — pay one of his fines and the Bulls extend his contract at the end of the season.

4. During a season ticket event at TD Garden, Kyrie Irving tells Celtics fans he’s staying in Boston, “if you guys will have me back” and says that he plans on having his No. 11 retired by the team. After a preseason game against the Knicks the next day, Kyrie reveals that he considered demanding a trade to New York before he ended up in Boston.

The Celtics start the season slow and fail to develop the easy chemistry last year’s team had, and young cornerstones Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown get off to rough starts, with Brown eventually being moved out of the starting lineup. In the wake of the rough start, Irving says the team needs to add veteran leadership. Irving repeatedly takes thinly-veiled and not-so-thinly-veiled shots at Boston’s young players, needling them about how they don’t know what it takes to win a championship.

Asked about his pledge to re-sign with Boston by members of the New York media, Irving appears to renege and says he’ll do whatever he wants come July 1. When Anthony Davis requests a trade before the deadline the Celtics can’t do anything about it because they can’t have two Rose Rule players on the roster who were acquired via trade, and they already have Irving. The non-Celtics contenders in the East beef up their rosters at the deadline while the Celtics stand pat and insist a full-strength Gordon Hayward will be their post-deadline acquisition.

The Celtics seemingly hash all their issues out on an apocryphal plane ride from Boston to California, and they kick a** and take names on their road swing but still end up finishing with the conference’s No. 4 seed. They sweep their way past the Pacers in the first round but get their doors blown off by the Bucks in the second round. After shooting 8-for-22 in Game 3, Irving says you won’t see him do that again; and he then goes 7-for-22 in Game 4 and 6-for-21 in Game 5.

3. A three-way trade that would have sent Trevor Ariza to the Wizards is scuttled because the teams could not agree which of the Grizzlies’ Brookses (MarShon or Dillon) was supposed to be in the deal. Memphis GM Chris Wallace essentially blamed the Wizards for screwing it up. The Wizards, in turn, blamed the Grizzlies. The Suns and Wizards both said the Grizzlies knew it was supposed to be Dillon Brooks and just backed out. This all played out live on Twitter. The Suns later traded Ariza to the Wizards anyway, and the Grizzlies sat out the deal.

2. Jimmy Butler requests a trade away from the Timberwolves because he doesn’t respect Karl-Anthony Towns and/or Andrew Wiggins, or something seemingly along those lines. Tom Thibodeau just kinda ignores the request but Wolves owner Glen Taylor tells people at the Board of Governors meeting that Butler is on the block and that Taylor wants a trade done quickly. Thibs just … doesn’t trade him and Butler opens camp with the Wolves.

Butler then has an absolutely legendary practice wherein he teams with the Timberwolves’ backups and beats the starters in a scrimmage, yelling at Wolves GM Scott Layden, “You f*****g need me, Scott. You can’t win without me.” Butler then sits down for a pre-arranged interview with ESPN and talks about that practice and everything else going on with the Wolves.

Butler sits out the entire preseason but the Wolves still don’t trade him and he opens the season with the team. Butler sits out three of the first 13 games of the season but plays his a** off in the other 10, logging 36 minutes a night and averaging 21-5-4 on 47-38-79 shooting splits to go along with more than two steals a night. He’s eventually traded to the Sixers for Dario Saric, Robert Covington, Jerryd Bayless, and a future second-round pick. Thibodeau is fired less than two months later.

1. The Lakers open the offseason by signing LeBron James, the consensus best player in the world. It takes, like, minutes for things to begin going completely off the rails. The Lakers follow James’ signing by bringing in JaVale McGee, Rajon Rondo, Lance Stephenson, and Michael Beasley, a collection of weirdos who are quickly dubbed The Meme Team, much to the dismay of Beasley. Magic Johnson justifies these signings during an appearance on a Summer League broadcast by being like, “I watched the playoffs last year.”

The Lakers hire Kurt Rambis as … something. Who knows? It’s not entirely clear. Jeannie Buss says in an interview that Kobe Bryant told her to be the Mother of Dragons in order to sign LeBron, which seemed strange at the time and appears even more so in hindsight.

The Lakers start the season with several bad losses and the aforementioned fight against the Rockets, all of which inspires Magic to curse out Luke Walton even though the team had previously agreed on the need to give Walton some time to figure things out. The Lakers seemingly get back on track and work their way into the No. 4 spot in the West, but during a Christmas day blowout of the Warriors, James suffers seemingly the first truly serious injury of his career — a year after playing all 82 games for the first time in his career. He shows up to the next game sipping a glass of wine.

The Lakers flounder during James’ absence but the wheels really come off in January and February when Anthony Davis’ seemingly Klutch-orchestrated trade request throws the season into chaos and results in rampant rumors about all of the Lakers’ young players, who apparently resent LeBron for making this happen and receive a stern talking-to from Magic, who says it went really well despite the players’ contention that it, ya know, did not go well. LaVar Ball re-enters the picture and says that he is going to will Lonzo into being traded to Phoenix.

Late in a 42-point loss to the Pacers, LeBron is seated three seats away from the closest teammate on the bench.

As all this is happening, Magic is tampering with everyone. Literally everyone. He tampered with you, even if you don’t know it. There’s also a bizarre event where he says that Ben Simmons requested advice from him over the summer but the Sixers deny it and also kinda don’t. While Magic is tampering, Giannis Antetokounmpo calls out LeBron for doing the same during the televised All-Star draft, where LeBron conspicuously drafts all the players who are going to be free agents this summer — and Davis.

LeBron shows up on Instagram helping 2Chainz with his latest album and takes a DNP-Load Management the next day. After the deadline passes Magic and Jeannie try to claim they didn’t actually offer everything under the sun for Anthony Davis. Magic blames the Pelicans for negotiating in bath faith. At the Sloan conference, Jeannie calls it fake news and blames the media.

Lonzo suffers a nasty-looking ankle injury and is given an initial return timeline of 4-6 weeks but ends up sitting the rest of the season. Ingram develops deep vein thrombosis in his arm. LeBron gets a game-winning shot attempt blocked by Mario Hezonja (and shoots 4-of-15 in the fourth quarter) and soon shuts things down for the season, having played a career-low 55 games — but not before big-upping former Laker D’Angelo Russell.

On the final night of the season, Magic spontaneously resigns without telling Jeannie Buss or anyone else in the organization, and proceeds to hold court for a series of escalatingly strange media sessions where he actually laughs about sitting across from Buss while discussing plans for next season and thinking to himself, “I’m not gonna be here.”

The Lakers then miss out on their top two coaching targets in Monty Williams (chose the Suns) and Tyronn Lue (didn’t want to have Jason Kidd as his assistant and was offered only three years on his contract) before eventually hiring Frank Vogel, with Kidd as his top assistant.

And while alllllll this was going on, there were rumblings around the league throughout the season that ESPN was working on a supposedly-explosive piece which would paint the Lakers’ culture — and Magic specifically — in a bad light. The morning Magic is scheduled to appear on First Take, that story drops and indeed paints the Lakers’ culture — and Magic specifically — in a bad light. He then goes on First Take and airs even more of the Lakers’ dirty laundry in public.

During the Finals, Dave McMenamin and Bill Plaschke report that if the Lakers don’t sign any stars this summer, LeBron could try to force his way out.