It is impossible to spend a few free minutes of a coffee break on YouTube without coming across this: an American civil war is a matter of time, and like it the disintegration of the United States of America.
Admittedly, these are prophecies of rage - but hey, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're not being chased.
So, in order to celebrate the uniqueness of each state in itself, in the atmosphere of the celebration of nationalism that is the World Cup that starts today - we decided to play a game that seems short to me: what would happen if there was a basketball tournament of the countries that (for now) make up the United States, when the only rules are - a place The birth, and building a quintet plus a sixth player?
We debated whether to make it contemporary or historical.
Checking the players revealed that there is no competition here.
With Harden, Lillard, Westbrook, DeRozan, George, Klay, Kawhi, the Ball brothers, Kevin Love, Jaro, Brook Lopez, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, California alone can field the two best teams in such a tournament ( which can strengthen or help explain the longing of Californians to separate from the rest of the states of the Union).
That lines up with the fact that there are now more than 50 California natives in the league—almost twice as many as second place (Texas and North Carolina, which is surprisingly tied with about 30).
Westbrook and Harden.
California is not in the competition, photo: Twitter
So we went for the historical ranking.
24 countries fielded a squad, 8 were screened in advance based on a lack of big names.
The remaining 16 countries were divided into 4 tiers quite roughly (but at least not corruptly).
We ran the simulations 5,000 times (in my head) and this is what came out:
Eliminated in the first round: Pippen's
Arkansas
(eliminated by New York).
North Carolina
(California) with Chris Paul, Sam Jones, David Thompson, Lou Hudson, Worthy, and Bob McAdoo.
South Carolina
(Ohio) with Murant, Middleton, Alex English and Garnett.
Virginia
(Pennsylvania) with Iverson and Moses Malone.
D.C.
(Florida) with Dave Bing, Baylor and Durant.
Louisiana
(Michigan) with Drexler, Alvey Hayes, Willis Reed, Bob Pettit and Karl Malone.
Illinois
(Indiana) with Isaiah Thomas (the original), Rose, Wade, Aguirre, Dan Isel and Anthony Davis.
and Texas
(New Jersey) with Tara Young, Bill Sherman, Butler, Grant Hill, Chris Bush and Allridge.
Scotty Pippen.
Eliminated early, photo: Twitter
Eliminated in the quarterfinals:
Florida
(New York) with T-Mac, Vince Carter, Mitch Richmond, Amara Stoudemire, Artis Gilmore and David Robinson.
California
(Indiana) with Kidd, Peyton, Miller, Ray Allen, Pierce, Kawhi and Bill Walton.
Michigan
(Ohio) with Magic, Booker, Garvin, Weber, Draymond and Dave DeBoucher.
and New Jersey
(Pennsylvania) with Mike Beebe, Tripioca, Rick Barry, Heinson, Anthony-Towns and Shaquille.
Stoudemire.
Was a collaborator with Vince Carter, photo: AP
Eliminated in the semifinals:
Indiana ,
Pennsylvania
Lost in the finals:
Ohio
with Steph, Alvin Robertson, Havlichek, LeBron, Jerry Lucas and Nate Thurmond.
LeBron and Kerry.
Together in Ohio, photo: AFP
Champion:
New York
with Bob Causey, Jordan, Dr. J, Carmelo and Karim.
Jordan.
He would take the championship, photo: SB
The disappointing ones:
First of all,
Georgia
, which did not manage to put together a team worthy of competition.
But also
Illinois and Texas,
who were eliminated in the first round, or
California
, which today, as mentioned, is stronger than all of them by a margin and here did not make the semifinals.
The surprise:
Ohio natives of Akron Steph and LeBron (13th place in representation in the league at the moment) makes the finals by knocking out Garnett, Magic, Kobe and Wilt on the way.
And what about politics?
After all, you can't do sports without politics.
So 125 Democratic electors reached the quarter-finals against only 58 Republicans.
overwhelming victory.
blue wave
What's more, as far as the Republicans are concerned, at least these results are really based on one big invention.
And in the days when the repulsive mixing of sports and politics has never been more apparent, don't be surprised that there are still many who slip a little too much into the realms of imagination and delusion.
At least there you can drink beer and no one died in the construction of the stadiums.
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