The new year brought to the NBA a kind of gloom when two important figures passed away in January. David Stern, a lawyer and who joined the NBA as a league counsel in the late 70s and went on to become an innovative NBA commissioner died after a losing battle with cancer. Three weeks later, Kobe Bryant, Laker legend and soon to be enshrined at the Basketball Hall of Fame, died in a helicopter crash together with his daughter Gigi and seven others.
The NBA and its players’ association will be auctioning the Kobe-themed Jordan Brand jerseys used during the 2020 All-Star Games and donate all the proceeds connected to Kobe foundations - the Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation and the Mamba-on-Three Fund.
The Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation provides the less privileged with sports programs that enhances their social outlooks and awareness. It also provides funding to deserving but less fortunate athletes to be in school and sports leagues as well as funding for young women in sports that provides equal opportunities. The Mamba-on-Three Fund was created specifically to honor and support the families of the seven other victims of the January 26 crash.
And we go on to the games. Since the death of Stern and Kobe, the league had been in a somber mood but that changed to a celebration of life when Dwayne Wade and Candace Parker led the crowd in making noise, making the United Center the loudest arena in the world for 24.2 seconds, honoring the numbers worn by Kobe and Gigi.
It was a differently formatted game where in the first three quarters, the scores are reset before the start of the quarter, the team winning the quarter wins it for charity with a specific amount. The fourth quarter was untimed with 24 points added to the leading team’s cumulative score, making it the target score, which was 157. It was a competitive fourth quarter that can be likened to that of a playoff game with the stars playing hard defense in the race for 157.
A game as good as that should not have ended with a free throw. LeBron’s team converted one free throw to reach 157 and win the game over Giannis’ team who scored 155. Even the final score ironically has Kobe’s number. Add 1+5+7+1+5+5 and what do you get?
The dunk contest was controversial. Aaron Gordon and Derrick Jones, Jr. were locked with identical scores of 50 three times and the judges should have declared the contest a tie. As per one judge, they were supposed to have another tie in the fourth dunk-off but one obviously had the bias for Jones, Jr. “I feel like I should have two trophies”, AG said, including the 2016 edition. Reportedly, he won’t be joining any more future dunk contests. The league should do something about this as JA Morant of Memphis, another exciting dunker, had declared he won’t be joining any dunk contests.
The Orlando Police Department, in their Twitter account tweeted an amusing message. “We plan on reaching out to the Chicago Police today to investigate ORL Magic forward AG being robbed of a dunk contest championship last night”.