The 10 wildest NBA moments of the last decade you probably forgot about

This decade was insane.

Throughout the last decade the NBA has gradually emerged as THE premier league on social media in the United States. It still doesn’t rate as well as the NFL does, but as far as the conversation online goes the NBA takes the cake.

Part of the reason why is because there have been so many incredibly ridiculous moments in the NBA that the viewing public has literally chronicled online via Twitter and other social mediums.

Think about all of the ridiculous moments we’ve had in the league in 2019 alone – like that time Dion Waiters ate too many gummies or when we absolutely flamed the Dallas Mavericks for their hideous jerseys.

Those moments would only be the tip of the iceberg compared to the rest of the decade. We’ve ranked the 10 best of them right here.

10. That time J.R. Smith threw soup at an assistant coach (2018)

(Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports)

This one was glorious. One second, we see a tweet from ESPN saying J.R. Smith is suspended for conduct detrimental to the team. The next, there’s a tweet telling us he threw SOUP at an assistant coach! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SOUP!?!? We had so many questions. Was it hot soup? Who was the coach? What kind of soup was it?  It turned out to be Damon Jones, and we learned that Smith tossed chicken tortilla soup.

9. Rob Pelinka’s Kobe story (2019)

(Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports)

This story is insane. It’s borderline creepy — might not even be borderline, honestly.  ESPN’s Baxter Holmes published a story peeling back all the layers of chaos within the organization after Magic Johnson left.

Tucked underneath one  of those layers was a story that Kobe Bryant’s former agent and current Lakers’ GM Rob Pelinka had been telling for years about a dinner between Kobe Bryant and Heath Ledger after Bryant watched “The Dark Knight.” Only problem is Ledger died six months before its release.

“There was one time when Kobe, who I worked with for 18 years, was going back to play in Madison Square Garden, and he had just seen ‘The Dark Knight. Obviously, you guys saw that movie. And he’s like, ‘Hey, hook me up with dinner with Heath Ledger, because he got so locked into that role. I want to know how he mentally went there.’ And so he had dinner with Heath, and he talked about how he locks in for a role. And Kobe used some of that in his game against the Knicks.”

He tells the story in this video below.

Well, now. That’s awkward.

8.  Remember when we tracked Dan Gilbert’s plane? (2014)

Oh, man was this great. This was peak creepy basketball Twitter. LeBron James was a free agent again for the first time since The Decision and word was he could be staging a return to Cleveland. Somehow, Twitter got wind of Dan Gilbert’s private plane taking a trip to South Florida.

BRON WAS COMING BACK. FOR REAL. Gilbert tried to deflect us away with a smokescreen tweet.

Didn’t work. Twitter tracked his plane and pulled out receipts.

And, low and behold, James ended up returning to the Cavaliers. NBA Twitter detectives were right all along.

7. CJ McCollum and Kevin Durant’s podcast beef (2018)

This will go down as one of the all-time great Twitter beefs. CJ McCollum and Kevin Durant had just recorded a podcast together – and Durant laughed at McCollum and the Blazers for being swept out of the playoffs.

Then, later on, McCollum called Durant’s decision to join the Warriors “soft”  and compared him joining the team to joining a gang that beat him up. Yeah, it was weird. Durant responded though.

Later on, they said it was just jokes. It’s hard to believe this was just jokes, though. It was entertaining, nonetheless.

6. The Colangelo burner account (2018)

The 2010’s will definitely go down as the decade of burner accounts — none more ridiculous than the burner accounts of ex-Sixers GM Bryan Colangelo. A report from the Ringer outed these five mysterious accounts that were being used to criticize 76ers players and defend the GM’s (his) moves.

The jokes rolled in. Even from the team’s own players!

And LeBron James, too.

In the end, it was determined that his wife was the one who was operating the accounts. But Colangelo still submitted his resignation to the team. The day finally came — Twitter ended up costing an NBA GM his job. What a time.

5. The Based God’s Curse (2011 and beyond)

BEWARE OF THE BASED GOD’S CURSE. If you’ve never heard of the rapper Lil B, get to know him. Love him. Cherish him. Or else you might fail in all your endeavors. Just ask Kevin Durant.

Durant called him a “wack” rapper back in 2011 after Lil B challenged him to play 1-on-1. In response, Lil B, a.k.a. The Based God, laid a curse down on him.

After the curse, Durant’s next few seasons ended with a loss in the NBA Finals and three straight losses in the Western Conference Finals. It was not until Durant joined the Warriors a full five years after being cursed that he actually won a title – BUT the Based God also mercifully removed the curse by then.

Somebody send James Harden some help, because he’s the cursed one now.

We see how the last four years for him have been. He’s lost a bunch of  MVP’s and hasn’t won a title yet. Don’t tell me this curse isn’t real.

4. That time Carmelo Anthony called a fan a glazed donut (2013)

Fans get on Twitter all the time to talk greasy to the athletes they hate and, largely, they don’t face any repercussions for it. So it was great to see that, for once, the athlete got the last laugh in a situation.

A fan said Carmelo Anthony always disappoints him and Anthony WENT IN.

Oh, this was glorious. Twitter laughed for years. In fact, Twitter is still laughing about this.

3. “They don’t love you like that” (2017)

This one was CRUEL. It’s one of the most underrated things that happened in the NBA in recent history. Draymond Green was trash talking Paul Pierce REALLY badly. He told him he didn’t deserve a retirement tour like Kobe Bryant got the year before.

“Chasing that farewell tour, they don’t love you like that. You can’t get no farewell tour. They don’t love you like that … You thought you was Kobe.”

Ouch.

2. The Clippers-Rockets brawl in the secret tunnels that never happened (2018)

This was so great when it first went down. The beef started in the game during Chris Paul’s return to the Staples Center.

Oh, how glorious this was. The original story was that the Rockets snuck through some secret passage to fight the Clippers in the locker room. Not only that, but they used CLINT CAPELA as a Trojan horse! It was ridiculous.

Later, when the actual details came out, it turned out that James Harden and Chris Paul were actually trying to broker peace with the Clippers and it was Tarik Black, not Clint Capela, who was sent to the Clippers locker room. So there was no fight. But it was still an incredible moment.

1. The time the Clippers kidnapped DeAndre Jordan (2015)

This was EVERYTHING. Long story short, DeAndre Jordan had a verbal agreement locked in with the Mavericks in the summer of 2015 and planned on signing with Dallas when the NBA’s free agency moratorium was over.

The Clippers had other plans.

THEY KIDNAPPED HIM AND WOULD NOT LET HIM LEAVE HIS HOME.

They kept everyone out of Jordan’s house until he could re-sign in LA at midnight. This triggered the strangest emoji battle Twitter has ever seen. Paul Pierce brought clip art to it.

Ultimately, Jordan returned to LA for a few more seasons and ended up in Dallas a few years later. But what an adventure this was.

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