The conspiracy theories ran wild on social media over the weekend when NBA fans witnessed the Lakers and Celtics fall into 0-3 deficits during the conference finals.
Some NBA fans played along with a theory that goes NBA commissioner Adam Silver and his scriptwriters are allegedly setting up two epic comebacks for the NBA Finals. There has never been an NBA team to come back to win a series after going down 0-3, and only three times have teams even forced a game seven.
The ‘Script’
Former NFL running back Arian Foster alleged the NFL is “rigged” in February on Barstool Sports’ “Macrodosing” podcast after he claimed to have received a script one year ahead of training camp. The theory took a life of its own and spilled over into other sports, especially the NBA.
Now, that meme is running its course during the NBA playoffs. Sometime last week a picture surfaced online of a faked internal NBA document with the alleged ending to the NBA season.
The picture had the Lakers and Celtics meeting in the NBA Finals for their 13th time, but that fake script forgot to include the Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic and the Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler being party crashers with their outstanding performances in the playoffs this year.
The same picture of the alleged NBA script also predicted that the Lakers would defeat the Celtics in the NBA Finals in seven games and LeBron James would win the Finals MVP award. The script got at least one key detail wrong by placing the site for Game 7 in the Lakers’ Crypto.com Arena instead of Boston’s TD Garden, which is where such a game would have been played had this scenario played out in real life.
Twitter users immediately called out Silver and the scriptwriters for shaking things up after their original script got leaked.
“Nice to see that the NBA script writers are participating in the writers strike, there’s no way they would’ve allowed the lakers and celtics to go out like this,” wrote Bleacher Report opinion writer Molly Morrison.
Another fan wrote, “They already have the comebacks set up, the only 2 teams to ever comeback from 3-0 faceoff for title 18.”
“Adam silver doing his best to beat the scripted allegations by not letting it be a lakers/celtics finals, he can’t fool me though,” another fan wrote.
Another fan took a comical approach and included a WWE meme.
Ayesha Called It
Ayesha Curry, wife of Steph Curry, called out the league during the 2016 NBA Finals after he her husband fouled out and was ejected in the fourth quarter of the Golden State Warriors’ 115-101 loss to LeBron’s Cavaliers in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.
“I’ve lost all respect sorry this is absolutely rigged for money…..Or ratings in not sure which. I won’t be silent. Just saw it live sry,” she wrote on Twitter in 2016.
She quickly deleted the tweet and followed it up with a series of tweets to apologize. But her husband’s team went on to lose Game 7 of the series, making the Warriors the first and only team in NBA Finals history to lose a series after being up 3-1.
Epic Rivalry
The Lakers and Celtics are two of the most historic franchises in the history of the NBA. A Lakers-Celtics finals matchup would be great for television ratings, fan engagement on social media, and it would introduce younger fans to some of the legendary basketball players that played for each franchise who may have been forgotten.
For some, the matchup between the two teams would also settle a debate about which franchise is better. Both have 17 titles, but the Celtics have more players in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame( 41).
The storybook ending would be to see both of these teams in the Finals, but the likelihood of that happening is slim to none based on history. The Lakers will play their Game 4 on Monday night, and the Celtics will play on Tuesday night. If both teams win, the script writing-theories will become more outrageous on social media.
