The Wildest NBA Moments of the Decade

There were many huge moments involving basketball and basketball players this decade, below are some of the wildest ones. 

2010 Agent 0’s Final Mission

Arguably one of the best shooting guards of his class, Gilbert Arenas played his last NBA game in 2010 following a 2009 incident with teammate Javaris Crittendon.  After a disagreement over a card game on a team flight, Javaris threatens to shoot him.  Agent 0 decides to call his bluff by bringing an assortment of unloaded pistols to the locker room. Gilbert narrowly missed being Javaris’ first victim. He’s currently in jail until 2036 for his part in a drive-by shooting. 

2010 The Decision

July 8, 2010, LeBron James transformed the NBA landscape when he announced that he was leaving his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers to, “take his talents to South Beach” and join the Miami Heat.”  This, after seven years in Cleveland, which got him two NBA MVPs and zero NBA championships.  He joined Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, they made the finals NBA Finals in four-straight seasons and won back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013.   But more importantly completely took control of his life, career and narrative and made it ok for other players to do the same.

2011-2012 Marbury CBA Championship Statue Erected 2012

Stephon Marbury was supposed to be a huge star.  The NYC basketball legend never really panned out the way most people expected and after bouncing around to five different NBA teams he was gone from the NBA by the time he was 32.  Most people predicted he was washed, but he went on to win three Chinese Basketball Association championships and now has his own statue in front of the stadium of his team, the Beijing Ducks.  Don’t call it a comeback.

2012: Crying Jordan

In 2009, when Jordan was inducted into basketball’s hall of fame, he delivered a very emotional, heartfelt, tearful and grateful speech.  But this is all that will ever be remembered.  On April 23rd, 2012, an image entitled “Sad Michael Jordan” was submitted to MemeCrunch, featuring a still image of Jordan crying with the caption “Why / Did I buy the Bobcats?”  And the rest is meme history.

2013: Is He Dead?

Everybody gets dunked on. But everyone doesn’t get alley oop dunked on by a dunking machine like Deandre Jordan.  Shout out to Brandon Knight for jumping and all that, but you were DOA when Chris Paul served that lob. I really did assume he was dead when he hit the ground.  Fortunately Brandon Knight did not die. He retired from the NBA that night and opened a quaint little kitten nursery in Wisconsin. Just kidding that wasn’t his last game in the NBA. but it was his last season with the Pistons.

2014 & 2019: Kawhi MVP X 2

Kawhi Leornard is best known for 3 things – Weird laugh, old school straight back cornrows, and being a complete beast on the court.  Leonard delivered the Toronto Raptors to their first championship in 2019 and his 28.5 points, 9.8 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.2 steals average against the Golden State Warriors earned him his second finals MVP of the decade.  His first was with the Spurs in 2014 and he joined Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lebron on a short list of people to do that on 2 different teams.  Who’s laughing now?

2014: Donald Sterling

Donald Sterling was the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014. Donald was recorded by his mixed-race girlfriend, saying, “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people.” And also, “I’m just saying, in your lousy f******* Instagrams, you don’t have to have yourself with, walking with black people.” And also, “You can sleep with [Black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that … and not to bring them to my games.”

The NBA fined Sterling $2.5 million in April 2014 for his comments and banned him from the NBA for life. Sterling’s wife Shelly Sterling then alleged that her husband was mentally incapacitated, removed Sterling from the family trust and sold the team to a less problematic billionaire, Microrsoft Co-founder Steve Ballmer.

2015: Real House Husbands of LA

Matt Barnes drove 95 miles to the home he shared with his ex-wife “Basketball Wives LA” star Gloria Govan- to confront his former LA Lakers teammate Derek Fisher.  Fisher and Govan were together at the home, Barnes’ twin sons called and told him Derek was at the house (along with many other people, it was a get together apparently) and Barnes jumped in the car and drove 95 miles to confront his former teammate.   There was an alleged physical confrontation and some spicy interviews afterward, but no charges were filed. Fisher is currently engaged to Govan and Barnes has moved on with Anansa Sims; daughter of iconic supermodel Beverly Johnson.

2016: The Nick Young, D’Angelo Russell, Iggy Azalea Incident 

Everything was going fine for human reaction meme Nick Young and his girlfriend, Australian “rapper” Iggy Azalea…That is until his Lakers teammate D’Angelo Russell “accidentally” leaked a video of Nick admitting he cheated on Iggy.  After being alienated from the team D’Angelo was eventually traded and is now a Golden State Warrior, Nick Young is currently looking for a new NBA team, but recently proposed to his longtime girlfriend, and Iggy Azalea is single again having recently split from Playboi Carti.

2016: NBA Finals – Cavs Get Off The Mat

Lead by league MVP Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors were poised to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers and win their second consecutive NBA Championship.  After going down 3-1 it seemed inevitable that GSW would defeat the Cavaliers. Lebron James and Kyrie Irving both scored 41 in a Game 5 win, Lebron poured on another 41 in game 6 and they overcame a near triple double from Draymond Green in game 7 to become the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3–1 series deficit to win the NBA Finals. Many believe this is what prompted GSW to get Kevin Durant- who lead them to consecutive NBA titles in 2017 and 2018.

2018: JR Smith goes full JR Smith

The Cavs had little chance of winning game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals on the road against  Golden State. Somehow, Lebron put the team on his back and bullied his way to a 49 point effort only to be sabotaged by JR Smith, who with a few seconds left and the game tied, grabbed the rebound and ran away from the basket.  Forcing the game into overtime where the Cavs were manhandled by 10 points.  Nobody knows what happened for sure, but the consensus is that JR Smith is a meme legend.

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of BET Networks.