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Dribbles and Drama: Top 5 Weirdest Moments in NBA History
By Jeremy Strause
July 10th, 2024
The NBA is renowned for its high flying dunks, spectacular dribbling and clutch shots. Amid all of these amazing plays and highlights, the league has also been the stage for some of the weirdest and funniest moments that left fans scratching their heads or cracking up in laughter. From unexpected on court antics to surreal game day incidents, the NBA has had many different strange episodes that us NBA fans will never forget. These are my top five favorite moments.
5. Marreese Speights Shoe Rejection
On a December 14th night in 2016, the Mavericks hosted the Warriors inside the American Airlines Center in Victoria Park, Dallas. With five minutes left in the third quarter, the Warriors held a 13-point lead. Speights came off an Andre Iguadola screen and caught the ball at the elbow. As he took his gather step, his shoe just came off.
Seconds later, Stephen Curry caught the ball in a similar position near the shoe. Instead looking up to find a pass or shot, Curry leaned down to pick up Speights shoe and threw it to the halfcourt. The announcers have lost their heads at this point as they are laughing and just kept saying, “Shoe down boys, shoe down.” Curry then drove baseline and turned the ball over, forcing Speights to run back without grabbing his shoe.
The Mavericks played their normal offensive possession, so Speights played defense on Tyson Chandler without a shoe on. Mavericks Jae Crowder then took a heavily contested 15-foot shot that was rebounded by Iguadola. As both teams were jogging up the court, Curry tried to toss the shoe back to Speights, but the former Defensive Player of the Year Tyson Chandler saw this developing, and ran over to swat the shoe out of mid air. The arena erupted into laughter and the refs blow the whistle stopping play, making this one of the funniest moments in NBA history.
NBA
4. Carmelo Anthony: The Boy Who Called Flop
On April 7th, 2010, the Thunder faced off against the Nuggets by the Chesapeake Bay in Oklahoma City. The game has been a tight knitted one, but the Thunder were on a 13-2 run. With 40 seconds left in the third quarter, Anthony caught the ball at the elbow, heavily guarded by Kevin Durant. Anthony took a power dribble trying to get through Durant, but fell into him. The refs called a travel and Anthony just lays there with his hands on his head.
Five seconds later, the Thunder inbound the ball with Anthony just laying there. The Thunder try to advance the ball quickly, but turn the ball over to JR Smith. The announcers are really confused as to why Anthony is still laying there. The crowd has gone almost quiet, wondering if something has actually happened to Anthony. The other nine guys on the court didn’t care. JR Smith tried to drive in against three Thunder players and turned the ball over. After around 15 seconds of play, the game is finally stopped so Anthony can be escorted out. When Anthony got back to the locker room, a trainer ran some tests to check for a concussion. One of the tasks he assigned was to say the months of the year backwards. Anthony responded saying, “I can’t even do that normally.”
NBA
3. Ron Artest Pantses Paul Pierce
Back in 2005, the Celtics were playing the Pacers in TD Garden in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. The Pacers were being led by Defensive Player of the Year Ron Artest (now known as Metta World Peace). The Celtics were one of the best teams at the time, and they were showcasing their dominance against the Pacers. One of the matchups in this game was Paul Pierce and Ron Artest, two of the best at the forward position. Pierce was torching Artest.
On one play, Pierce was underneath the basket getting ready to come around an off ball screen. To slow this play down, Artest resorted to an unconventional tactic and pantsed Paul Pierce. Pierce pulled up his pants quickly, came off the screen, caught the ball and drained a three in Artest’s face.
This was not even the most bizarre part of this game. After the game, Artest decided to go on national television and deliver his apology. However, this wasn’t a normal apology. Artest made a song and performed it for the whole USA to see.
NBA
2. Paul Pierce Fakes an Injury because he Pooped Himself
June 5th, 2008, the Boston Celtics hosted game one of the NBA Finals against their longtime rivals in the Los Angeles Lakers. Kobe Bryant led the Lakers against the Pierce- led Celtics. It’s like we were throwing it back to the 80’s with Magic Johnson vs Larry Bird. Just like the fans expected, it’s a really competitive game as the Lakers had just a two point lead.
With seven minutes left in the game, Kobe has the ball on the left wing, then drives in toward the right side and takes a really tough fading away floater that goes in. As Pierce came down from the contest, he acted like he fell badly. He acted so hurt that the Celtics brought out the wheelchair to wheel him back to the locker room.
Just a minute and a half later, Pierce comes back with energy. It’s almost as if there was no injury at all. He now admitted that he had to take care of some business on the toilet. There has been speculation of both number one andor number two. There were brown stains on his shorts after he came back, but why ask for a wheelchair if you went number two?. It’s still really funny as Celtics fans treated this man like he was a Warrior for battling through injury, but in reality he had to go to the bathroom.
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
1. Lebron Streaker Turned Documentary
March 20th, 2013, Lebron and the Heat went to Cleveland, Ohio, to face off against the Cavaliers in Quicken Loans Arena. Lebron James and the Heat were on a 23- game winning streak trying to make it 24. If they win in Cleveland, they will have the second longest winning streak in NBA history. However, the Cavs were putting up a fight.
With around eight and half minutes left in the game, the Heat were up by 4 and on the defensive end. When the ball is on the top of the key, a streaker runs onto the floor. The streaker’s name is James Blair and he is a diehard Lebron and Cavs fan. He ran on the floor with a message to Lebron saying to come back in 2014. As a result of this streak, Blair is now banned for life from the arena and actually went to jail.
The weirdest part comes later, where ESPN makes a documentary style piece on James Blair in 2015, after Lebron rejoins the Cavaliers. The ESPN documentary gives us a deeper dive into Blair. When watching this documentary, we get a look at Blair’s bedroom, and he has everything Lebron James. He has posters, bobbleheads, a life size cardboard cutout and Lebron blankets. However, some believe Blair was the underlying reason why Lebron came back to Cleveland.
Associated Press