Game 4 vs Phoenix in 2021

I know we’ve kinda recovered, but that loss (and the series as a whole) virtually solidified the Westbrook trade.

Suns beating the Lakers that badly in 2021, with all the injuries.

It led to the Westbrook trade that dismantled a title contending roster and has all but shut down LeBron’s Lakers title window

The opposite of that is Dame sending the Thunder home saved their franchise, trading PG13 was the catalyst for every asset they have now

Kings 2002 but unironically it’s Kings who got karmaed.

I guess Lakers is just a god’s himself team

The thunder losing to the warriors in game 7 of the 2016 western conference finals

I mean you can argue that Dame horrible shot against okc sent us into a rebuild

Magic lost the Tim Duncan Sweepstakes because of team plane policies.

Nevermind Grant Hill… TMac and Duncan would have probably saved McGrady’s back, made the Magic a contender for a decade while with a 20/20 hindsight, who knows how a Spurs team of Dwight and Kawhi who do?

Malice at the Palace IMHO although not really a “loss” how you mean it

27 in a row

2016 WCF game 6 AKA the Klay game. If the Thunder win that game I truly believe we’re the champions that year. Instead we lose KD and don’t make it out of the first round for 7 years now. We went into the 4th quarter up by 8 with a chance to close vs the best regular season team of all time and advance to the finals

Rockets had the team, the remedy and the momentum to make it happen that year before they missed all those three pointers. That was their moment and imo they never actually felt like that big a threat afterwards, even with Harden scoring like he was at the time. That game changed everything for them.

Pacers beating the Knicks in the 2013 ECSF.

I’m going to try to make this concise.

The Knicks were an old team.

We started a close to retirement Jason Kidd.

We got valuable minutes from a rotation of Kurt Thomas Marcus Camby and Kenyon Martin. (The 3 of them rotating as our center off the bench, and some spot minutes occasionally off the bench for one of the other 2, but they were so old I don’t think all 3 of them ever suited up at the same time, and Kmart was a mid season signing.)

Our team was predicated on our spreadoffense, Felton or Melo pick and rolls with Tyson or Kmart, or double screens with Melo and Tyson or Kmart screening for Felton with the big rolling to the rim and Melo fading to the wing, getting us a lot of open 3’s or lobs to the rim.

We also played Melo a lot out of the post and surrounded him with shooters.

Felton, Jr, JKidd, Papi Prigioni, Shump, and most importantly 2 of the best 3 point shooters in the league. Steve “Novakaine” Novak, and Chris “Cope” Copeland, who both finished the season shooting over 42% from deep.

In that off-season, the Knicks decided they needed to be bigger, and they needed to shoot more, not a bad idea, bringing in a true center who wasn’t looking to soon retire, and giving Copeland more minutes could be a great idea right?

Right???

According to our front office, wrong.

What we needed, was a miracle, someone who could do what Chris Bosh was doing for the Heat, but better, according to our front office.

What we needed was Chris Bosh’s old teammate.

The guy Chris Bosh wanted to get away from.

A 7 footer, who shot under 40% from the field, and under 30% from deep

A 7 footer who barely averaged 5 rebounds a game, and hadn’t played in over 40 games in a season for over 2 years.

A 7 footer who was colloquially known as the worst defender, no, the worst player in the league.

What we needed was Andrea Bargnani.

And they were willing to trade Steve Novak and Marcus Camby to get him.

So trade they did, and they threw in another 3 picks that we didn’t have as well, just for kicks.

And with our newfound “Center” on the roster, and Amare “coming back from injury” we no longer had minutes for Chris Copeland either.

So they let him walk.

To the Pacers.

The next season, our team on paper looked remarkably similar. We had lost Camby and Kurt Thomas sure, but we had replaced them with Bargnani and Tyler Johnson.

Copeland and Kidd might be gone, but they were to be replaced by the rookie SG’s THJR, and Tour’e Murray (certified Knicks legend).

That was a team that should be good, right?

Wrong.

When you trade the incumbent 7/8th man of the Year. (Official reward of the NYBA (sponsored by the J train)) and a mainstay of the identity of you team, for the worst 7 footer to ever step on an NBA court, your season goes to shit. No questions asked.

And boy it wasn’t just one season. The Andrea Bargnani trade was the precursor, simply foreshadowing if you will, for what would be the Knicks future.

It culminated on March 12th, 2015, 2 years later, when the leagues worst Knicks at 13-51 played the 17-47 Los Angeles Lakers.

The Knicks started Langston Galloway, alexy Shved, Lance Thomas, Lou Amundson, and Andrea Bargnani on that night.

In a game uglier than any Knicks Heat matchup of the 1990s the Knicks recorded their first win of the season against a Western conference team.

5 months into the season.

4 months later, they would finally find the answer to a question they had posited to themselves 2 years previously.

Where could one find a 7footer, who could send shots into the stands, and also spread the floor for Carmelo Anthony?

The answer obviously, is in Latvia. And with the 4th pick of the NBA Draft, the New York Knicks selected Kristaps Porzingis, opening a new, equally tragic act, to the Broadway Magic that is the New York Knicks.

It seems like an obvious answer from recent history is the 76ers getting beaten by the Hawks when Simmons passed up the dunk. I know he’s been hurt, but… It seems like if he dunks it and the 76ers start rolling, he might not get stuck in a bad mental spot and the NBA might look a little different now (especially if he’d kept playing and stayed under the supervision of a training staff, then he doesn’t get traded, etc…).

Cavs-Celtics, 2010. When LeBron took that jersey off we all knew he was gone

Pacers @ Suns, January 2014. It completely killed Hibbert, the whole verticality thing and the early season Pacers hype after a 9-0 start. The sour taste of that season’s ending lingered for many years after.