The Amazon Echo’s intelligent personal assistant, Alexa, dishes out its fair share of topical humor. With the NBA Finals in full swing, the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers are not above Alexa’s comedic fodder.
Alexa will tell you — if you ask for “a Warriors burn” or “a Cavaliers burn” — a variety of disses at the expense of the two teams facing off in the sport’s pre-eminent event for the third straight year.
A few Warriors jokes include:
“What did Steph Curry learn in grade school? If at first you don’t succeed, stack your team, and try, try again.”
This riff refers to the Warriors’ offseason signing of free agent Kevin Durant, which gave the team four all-NBA players in its starting lineup — an upgrade from “death” lineup to “megadeath.” It’s unclear why Curry was singled out for this joke — the entire organization was in on the recruiting process and, ultimately, it was Durant’s decision to make the move to Oakland — but, as this joke makes clear, Curry makes for the easiest comedic target, when all else fails.
“How do you spell cupcake using only two letters? KD.”
From this Lee Jenkins piece in Sports Illustrated came the revelation that Kendrick Perkins — when teammates with Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant on the Oklahoma City Thunder — used to refer to colleagues, derogatorily, as “cupcakes” when they were “being soft.” This trope was exasperated when, a few days after Durant published his piece in The Players’ Tribune indicating that he was heading to Golden State, Westbrook posted an Instagram photo with a plate filled with cupcakes. During Durant’s return to Oklahoma City on Feb. 11, he saw and heard the full brunt of it — cupcake chants, a little girl dressed in a cupcake costume, fans with cupcake signs and shirts, and even a fan with a massive cupcake painted on his chest.
“A doctor offered the Warriors a miracle drug that would make them three feet, one inches taller, but they declined. They have a bad history when they’re up 3-1.”
This joke refers to last year’s Finals where, with the same two teams competing, the Warriors lost games five through seven, giving up the first 3-1 lead in Finals history and perhaps giving up the title of “best NBA season ever” in the process. With a unanimous MVP and a record-breaking 73 wins in the regular season, the implosion was the source of much derision, with fans and media members alike devolving the historic demise into an array of memes in its aftermath.
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Quips against the Cavs include:
“What does Tyronn Lue call his boss? LeBron.”
During David Blatt’s reign as head coach of the Cavaliers from 2014 to 2016, there were several instances of a power struggle between LeBron James and Blatt, culminating in the coach’s firing 41 games deep into last season, despite the Cavs’ 30-11 record at the time. With Lue, those administrational disagreements have also happened from time to time, including reportedly, from Jenkins again, during halftime of last year’s NBA Finals.
“Why is Kyrie Irving missing his jumpers? He believes his shot is flat.”
During the All-Star break, Irving revealed, on Richard Jefferson’s and Channing Frye’s personal podcast — Road Trippin’ — that he believed that the Earth was flat. ESPN’s Arash Markazi followed up with Irving after the podcast was released, where the latter doubled down, proclaiming, “I think people should do their own research.” This all resulted in its requisite ridicule, after which Irving attempted to backtrack from his comments, blaming the media for blowing the story up: “the fact that this could be actual news … it doesn’t matter.” Amidst a slow All-Star break weekend — sans for the late minute, postgame news of a DeMarcus Cousins trade — this news lead airwaves and has since been the source of a number jests ever since, as Alexa can attest to.
“What do you call the Cleveland Cavaliers without LeBron? Irrelevant.”
This one’s not necessarily an indefensible quote. In the four seasons between James’ two stints in The Land, the Cavs went a dismal 97-215 with zero playoff appearances. Since his return, they’ve gone 161-85 with three straight Finals appearances. In fact, the local economy is largely based off of James — employment went up 23 percent, the number of establishments 13 percent, in the one-mile radius around the Quicken Loans Arena since his homecoming in 2014. Those same figures went down when he left the Cavs in 2010.
The Warriors are up 2-0 heading into a pivotal Game 3 in Cleveland on Wednesday night.