The NBA Playoffs are not defrauding anyone this season. The Warriors go 1-0 to San Antonio Spurs after trailing more than 20 handicap points in the first game of the Western Finals and the Cavaliers will face the Celtics in the East after they have been 4- 3 to the Wizards in the conference semifinals.
Both Cavs and Warriors are still undefeated in the playoffs this season and it looks like they will play the ring in the Finals for the third consecutive season.
But, what if this was just a pre-established script with the referees, the owners and the league doing the paripé pure marketing?
They are the kind of questions that come to mind if you see the videos of Mike Korzemba, a specialist youtuber at feeding conspiracy theories around the NBA.
The most famous video has the best of all time as the protagonist: "Was Michael Jordan's retirement a secret suspension of David Stern?""
Korzemba, which has near 800k subscribers, presents a case more or less convincing to elaborate a theory that has long been speculated among fans of the NBA. According to him, Jordan would have left the NBA in 1993 to become a baseball player because David Stern, the NBA commissioner at the time, secretly sanctioned him by ludopath, protecting the league's image. The video is based on images from the time with cheesy background music and comments from Korzemba.
This seems crazy, but there is one detail that would give the benefit of the doubt to youtuber: Why Jordan, at the press conference of his first retirement, says he would return to basketball "if David Stern leaves me"?
It is not the only theory that breaks Korzemba about Jordan.
One of their most legendary matches is also in question. It is "flu match," that fifth game of the 1997 finals between the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz of Stockton and Malone, Jordan played 39th fever. It was the third game in Utah and the series was tied (2-2), although they won the Bulls with 38 points, 5 assists and 7 rebounds MJ.
A feat that has always been talked about whether it was sickness or a hangover. Korzemba opens the possibility that Jordan was partying the night before the game, supported by former player Jaylen Brown and a former Dallas Mavericks manager.
He also has another video analyzing David Stern when he picked up the envelope that determined which team would choose first in Draft'85. In other words, the team that would take Pat Ewing.
The material includes a giant spinning ball filled with envelopes, a strange counter and a suspicious Stern grip. "Is not it weird that the envelope he chose is visibly folded in one of his corners?" Asks the youtuber.
More than a conspiracy, Korzemba is also dedicated to playing basketball fiction thanks to the NBA 2K, creating assumptions like what would happen if Curry played in the Knicks or James Harden in Phoenix Suns.
In one of the episodes, the youtuber simulated a match between Dream Team'92 and Redeem Team of 2008, eager to know who would win. According to the video game, the legends of 92 would be imposed on the Kobe, Lebron or Carmelo by 114 to 110 with a partidazo of Michael Jordan, precisely, although it is something impossible to verify.
hoax
NBA is a business first and sport 2nd
so there is always going to be decisions made to maximise profit.