About Last Night: LeBron’s Historic Night
In case you were busy deleting everything interesting from your Facebook account before Graph Search goes live, here’s what you missed in sports on Wednesday.
- LeBron James reached a major milestone Wednesday night, becoming the youngest NBA player to reach 20,000 points in a 92-75 Heat win over the Golden State Warriors. James broke Kobe Bryant’s previous record scoring pace by over a year. “I’m just trying to secure my legacy,” James said, “and I’m very fortunate that Kobe doesn’t have a chance to put this record further out of reach.”
- Bryant, meanwhile, was seen on his off-day consulting with MIT physicist Seth Lloyd, who two years ago derived a solution for the so-called “Grandfather Paradox.” This paradox theoretically suggests that backward time travel is impossible, as it would allow the time-traveler to potentially kill his or her own grandfather (or other similar actions), thus rendering the initial act of time-travel a recursive impossibility. Lloyd has theorized that a quantum time-machine could allow a particle to travel back in time in its current state, assuming that quantum mechanics is nonlinear. “But see, we don’t have enough evidence to prove that quantum mechanics is nonlinear,” Lloyd told Bryant in his office. “And besides, this is all just theoretical; I can imagine sending a particle back in time a few minutes in a lab setting, but an entire human? Highly unlikely to occur before your basketball skills have degraded. I mean, how are you going to outscore LeBron in the past if you’re an old man?” Bryant nodded at Lloyd, and said, “That’s OK. I thought you were the Kobe Bryant of quantum mechanics. I guess I’ll just have to do it myself.”
- The Boston Celtics were upset at home by the New Orleans Hornets, 90-78, in the first matchup between Doc Rivers and his son Austin. “They were one step ahead of us the whole game,” said a dejected Doc Rivers in his postgame press conference. “Like someone had come back from the future to call out sets and rotations before we had a chance to execute them. But that’s obviously absurd. I mean, who would do that? And why?”
- Deadspin.com reported that Heisman Trophy finalist Manti Te’o’s inspirational story of overcoming the death of his girlfriend on the way to the BCS National Championship game was a hoax. “I swear I knew her,” Te’o said, stunned at the revelation. “I can hear her voice so vividly. See her face. Smell her scent. Those nights we spent together that it was all a lie seems impossible. And yet, the memories are like vapor when I try to access them. Like someone is toying with the fabric of reality. Who would do that? And why?”
- North Carolina State could not overcome a 16-point first half, eventually falling to Maryland, 51-50, in College Park on a buzzer-beating tip-in by sophomore Alex Len. A clearly spooked Len said after the game, “It’s very weird. I got an e-mail from stealmysunshine@hotmail.com telling me to look for the tip-in late. Who could’ve sent that? And why would that be their e-mail address? I mean, I get the reference, but seriously, Hotmail? What year is this?”
- Chip Kelly has agreed to become the new head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. When asked if it was hard to leave the program he built at the University of Oregon, Kelly responded, “Sure, but I don’t want to be there when this whole endorsing Rory McIlroy thing blows up in Phil Knight’s face.” When asked how endorsing the world’s top golfer could possibly undermine a company as large as Nike, Kelly said, “I got an anonymous tipster over in Beaverton who told me the whole Tiger Woods scandal is about to seem like child’s play. I don’t know who this ‘Baller 8’ is, or why he’s sending me this information. Maybe the guy’s an Eagles fan?”
- Arsenal got a late winner against Swansea at Emirates Stadium to advance to the fourth round of the FA Cup. Arsenal coach, Frenchman Arsene Wenger, was immodest after the match, saying, “I suspect the media thought I should bring in (reserve striker) Lukas Podolski, but I knew it would be unnecessary.” When asked how he could’ve been so certain, Wegner pulled out a pack of Gauloises and said, “Am I the best manager in British football? Of course. That is the only explanation with meaning. It’s not as if I got a strange missive from an American imploring me not to take out Olivier Giroud no matter how inept he seemed. Don’t be absurd. Who would send such a a letter? And why?”
- New York Knicks forward Rasheed Wallace may be lost for the season because of complications from a left foot injury. “It seemed to be getting better,” Wallace explained, “until one night I had this dream that a tall, skinny dude jumped out of, like, a space tunnel, and he started hitting my foot and yelling, ‘This is for ’04, this is for Karl Malone.’ The dream was so real, and my foot hurt like crazy the next day. But who would spend their time popping out of a space tunnel to hurt my foot on behalf of Karl Malone? And why?”
- Former FC Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola has committed to coach FC Bayern Munich starting next season, signing a three-year contract with the German giants. “I was interested in the idea of the Manchester United job, but I believe Sir Alex Ferguson will lead them to the double this spring, and I wasn’t sure that was the act I wanted to follow.” When asked how he could be so certain that United would win two trophies this season, Guardiola said, “Well, the whole FA seems to be in the bag for United this year, so it wasn’t exactly rocket science to figure that one out.”
- LeBron James reached a major milestone Wednesday night, becoming the second youngest player to reach 20,000 points in a 92-75 Heat win over the Golden State Warriors. James failed to break Kobe Bryant’s previous record scoring pace by over a year. Bryant, a noted member of the 2004 Lakers, francophile, Philadelphia native, fan of the ’90s one-hit-wonder Len, lapsed Catholic, and longtime rival of the Boston Celtics, told the media, “Legacy secured.” Bryant was later seen spending his off-day visiting discredited former MIT physicist Seth Lloyd for reasons yet to be determined.
Filed Under: About Last Night, Arsenal, Boston Celtics, Golden State Warriors, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Miami Heat, New York Knicks, Notre Dame, Philadelphia Eagles
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