Getty Image
What a year, fellow NBA fans. So much has happened in professional basketball in 2016 that it’s almost impossible to remember every important moment without the help of rocket scientists and brain surgeons. Fortunately, our crack team of brainiacs works around the clock to keep track of the NBA moments that truly mattered to us so that we can bring the most important victories, highlights, and Joel Embiid Instagram trolling to you in one convenient year-end list.
Here now are the 16 best basketball moments of 2016. Please enjoy.
The Warriors won 73 games, but blew a 3-1 lead
Years from now, when we’re all old and living out our final days in rocking chairs on the porches of government-owned retirement camps, we’ll tell our grandchildren about the Golden State Warriors team that blew the greatest season in NBA history. Yes, we’ll regale them with highlights of the greatest regular season in NBA history, as Stephen Curry and the Warriors did the unthinkable and won 73 games. We’ll recall how they almost blew it against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals, but they did the impossible and overcame a 3-1 deficit to advance to the NBA Finals. “It was so amazing,” we’ll tell them whilst sipping warm Metamucil, “but then it all came crashing down.”
The Warriors, as we mention occasionally, ultimately blew their own 3-1 lead to LeBron James and the Cavaliers. It was a Finals for the ages, but all the Warriors had at the end was their 73-win regular season. They even hung a banner for it, because it’s better than renaming the arena the We Blew a 3-1 Lead Center.
Kevin Durant couldn’t beat them, so he joined them
Getty Image
So, how do you rebound from blowing a 3-1 lead? You go out and sign one of the biggest stars in the league, of course. People were stunned, possibly even flabbergasted, that Kevin Durant would leave Oklahoma City to join the team that beat his Thunder in the playoffs. After all, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame just a year earlier, as a preemptive “We love you, so please don’t leave us” gesture from the organization and even the state’s governor. But what are you going to do when Guy Fieri is selling you on his town?
Instead, KD took a short deal to chase a ring with Curry, but also presumably to make sure he’s one of the first stars in line to ink a $210 million deal under the new CBA.
Will Durant make Steve Ballmer and the city of Boston cry all over again as a free agent in 2017? Probably!
The rise of serial crotch-kicker Draymond Green
TNT
Like any good budding dynasty, the Warriors have been hated even more than they’ve been loved. The 3-1 lead jokes only grew stronger with the Durant coup, but it’s Draymond Green that has really evolved into the role of the team’s ultimate villain. Warriors fans, new and old (but mostly new) alike, defend his style of play as old school and intense, while the rest of us just want him to cool it with the dick- and face-kicking. The league tried to send a message with a $25,000 fine for kicking Steven Adams right in the pee faucet, but Green’s reckless appendage rampage has continued, with the latest “accidental” target being James Harden’s face.
Shirtless J.R. Smith is the hero Cleveland deserves
Getty Image
Oh yeah, about that team that didn’t blow a 3-1 lead! Was the best part of the Cavs winning the Finals how LeBron James finally brought a championship to Cleveland after years of close calls and then abandoning his hometown to chase a dream in Miami? Was it that the Warriors fans who made those awful signs felt stupid and went home to laminate their tears? Was it that the Cavs players received rings so fancy they’d make Liberace blush? No, the best part was shirtless J.R. Smith!
Soon after the Cavs’ celebration began in Las Vegas, Smith’s shirt was history. He even removed his shirt during Game 7 of the World Series to rally the Cleveland Indians. President Obama finally got in on the action by thanking Smith for bringing his shirt to the White House, but, honestly, we were bummed that he dressed appropriately for once.
Joel Embiid becomes “The Process”
This isn’t just about the champs, though. Even the worst team in the NBA could celebrate in 2016. The 76ers were mocked because of “The Process,” but now they won’t stop celebrating it. That’s because Joel Embiid adopted Sam Hinkie’s failure as his new nickname, and as such the fans are chanting, “Trust the process” for their budding superstar. He might be restricted because of his injuries, but he’s been insanely good in his limited play. Imagine when he’s at full speed and dunking all over everyone with no restrictions. It’s almost pornographic. The Sixers will issue post-coital cigarettes to fans because the Process will leave them sweaty and weak in the knees. Sort of like Nerlens Noel.
Even if Embiid doesn’t rise to superstar status and simply becomes an important role player, he’ll still be very important to us. Because who else will troll Chandler Parsons on Instagram? Certainly not Jahlil Okafor.
The sports world’s outpouring of support for Craig Sager
"Time is simply how you live your life" <img src="https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="