The Dumbest Things NBA Players Said artwork

The Dumbest Things NBA Players Said

The Basketball Brief | NBA insider official

June 4, 2026

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NBA players are great at what they do in the court, but some of their basketball takes sound more ridiculous than Skip Bayless.
I watched it with these two lazy, repaired eyes. With Kevin Durant usually flying under the radar, it's surprising to see that he had some choice words for Kawhi. During the 2014 NBA Finals, with the San Antonio Spurs taking on the Miami Heat, Kawhi landed on the Spurs at the time was dominating the Finals. Even though Kawhi struggled during the first two games, he was unstoppable in game three, four, and five, averaging 23 points per game while shooting 68% from the field. With the San Antonio Spurs taking down the Heat in just five games, people started to talk about just how good Kawhi Lander was after the 22-year-old dominated the NBA Finals and ended up winning the Finals MVP. Kevin Durant, arguably one of the greatest players of all time, had some things to say about Kawhi, saying that he's not that good and that his friend Paul George is better. Durant said that Kawhi is a system player on Twitter after the NBA Finals. He said the only reason he's so good is because he plays for Greg Popovich. Then he asked the question, what if Paul George was on the Spurs? Paul George played for the Pacers at the time behind head coach Frank Vogel, which Kevin Durant says that Paul George is restricted by his often non-existent offense. After people started to react to the tweet, Durant tried to clear up the confusion with the Facebook post. He said, That's the last time I'm going to talk about this. I did not hate on Kawhi Leonard. Quite honestly, if you knew me or been around me, you'd see how excited I was such a young, humble guy. But the world loves conflict, I see. I really gave major props to Coach Pop, and the whole staff were putting those guys in great positions to be successful. I realize you can't say anything about a champion, so if I hurt anybody's feelings, I apologize. I really don't, but you get my drift. But in 2016, Durant took his comments back, when he said that he's grown as a player and said that he's not a system player. During an interview, Durant explained playing against Kawhi when he said, I know you guys like to throw that term around, but he's grown so much as a player. I have to be locked in every play. He could shoot the mid-range, he could post up, he can hit the three, he could dribble. He's just grown so much. Defensively, probably one of the best guys in the league. It's fun when you get that match up at the small forward. There are so many great guys, but he's one of the guys in that top tier. Someone asked Durant if he regretted saying that Kawhi was a system player, and Durant answered, I'm not taking it back. I said the system is the reason why he's out there. Pop put him in great positions to be the player he is. No, I don't regret it at all. That's 3 years ago, if he hasn't grown, that's on him. But he's grown as a player, but yeah, I'll take it back. With Paul Pierce going on air with the TNT cast and saying some crazy things, he recently made a huge accusation that many people thought was ridiculous. Everyone spent the entire 2018-2019 season celebrating the career of the Miami Heat legend point guard Dwayne Wade. He's getting ready to retire, who averaged 22 points, 5 assists, and 4 rebounds per game for his career. But Paul Pierce still thinks he was and is better than Dwayne Wade, even though he hasn't played since he played with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2016-2017, where he finished his career, averaging 19 points, 3 assists, and 5 rebounds. And he now works for ESPN as an analyst. When someone asked Paul Pierce who would go down as the better player, him or Dwayne Wade, he didn't think about it at all on NBA Countdown. He said, That's easy. I can say that off the bat. That's me. Paul Pierce's biggest argument about the topic was the difference in teammates that he had, saying that if he had Wade's teammates, he would have been more successful. With Dwayne Wade being a part of one of the greatest duos in basketball history, between him and Hall of Fame center Shaquille O'Neal, and then playing with arguably the greatest player in NBA history LeBron James. With Dwayne Wade having three championships, one with Shaq and two with LeBron, Paul Pierce has won during his time with the big three, consisting of him and teammates Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Paul Pierce wanted to say that if he had Shaquille O'Neal, or LeBron James in his prime, that he would be sitting on five or six championships easy. Dwayne Wade was a 13-time All-Star, and he's averaged 22 points per game since 2003 During Paul Pierce's 19-season career, he was a 10-time All-Star, and only averaged 19 points per game. After Paul received a lot of hate for the comparison between himself and Dwayne Wade's career, he defended himself by saying that he played during the era before social media, that a lot of the generation hasn't seen, and they're not familiar with his work. With Kyrie Irving usually keeping his comments to himself, he recently said some interesting things with some being conspiracy theories. Kyrie Irving is amongst all the people who believe in a conspiracy, such as the earth being flat. And with them being a public figure and a popular player in the NBA, it's a big debate for a while. The whole thing started when Kyrie asked his teammates Richard Jefferson and Channing Frye, they thought the earth was flat. They both laughed and said yes, not knowing what they're about to get into. And Kyrie went on for many minutes on why he thinks the earth is flat. Kyrie said, All these things that particular groups and I won't pinpoint one group, they almost offer up this education. The fact that in our lifetime, there's so many holes and so many pockets in our history, is the earth flat around? We need to do research on it. They lied to us. And Kyrie won't comment on who he's talking about when he refers to they, but Kyrie did get into another level of his thought on the theory when he said, what I've been taught is that the earth is round. But if you really think about it from a landscape of the way we travel, the way we move and the fact that, can you really think of us rotating around the sun and all the planets aligned, rotating at specific dates, being perpendicular with what's going on with those planets? More than a year later, Kyrie's at Forbes under 30 summit in Boston, and he went on to apologize about spreading the theory. He said that he didn't know his words would influence so many people. Kyrie said that he wishes to apologize to science teachers across the world for making their job even harder, and have to try even harder to convince their students that the earth is round. During an onstage exchange with the senior editor of Forbes, Kyrie said, If you believe in flat earth theories, just don't come out and say that stuff. That's for intimate conversation. Steph occurred usually talking about basketball with the community, came as a surprise when he started talking about conspiracies. Steph made a big stir in the media. He said during a podcast that he doubts the United States ever landed on the moon. While on the podcast Winging It, which is hosted by NBA players Vince Carter, Kent Basemore, and Andy Finberg, Curry made his comment and started up a conversation that was huge. During the podcast, Curry, Carter, Basemore, and Curry's teammate Andre Gidala were talking about the sounds that dinosaurs made. While on the conversation, Curry switched to the subject quickly when he asked everyone if they believed that the United States has actually been to the moon. When he said, have we ever been to the moon? When they all agreed the answer was no, Curry responded with, they gotta come and get us. Sorry, I don't want to start conspiracies. In fact, from 1969 to 1972, NASA landed on the moon six times, and they put 12 astronauts in the lunar surface, and they're getting ready to do so again in the next few years. NASA's even got as far as inviting Curry to the space station. During an interview, spokesman at NASA said, we left for Mr. Curry to tour the lunar lab at our Johnson Space Center in Houston. Perhaps the next time the warriors are in town to play the Rockets, we have hundreds of pounds of moon rock stored there in the Apollo Mission Control. During his visit, he could see firsthand what we did 50 years ago, as well as what we're doing to go back to the moon in the coming years, but this time to stay. Curry later went on to apologize about all the trouble his comments caused, and he went on to Instagram Live with former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a total of 524 days in space. Curry said his comment was supposed to be a joke, and everyone blew it out of proportion. During the conversation with Scott, Curry said, I didn't want in any way shape or form to demean the significant accomplishments that you and people that you work with on a daily basis were able to make a reality. I'm obviously genuinely sorry for how that came across. Curry was excited about going to Space Station, and brought it up during the conversation with Scott. Curry said, I'm definitely looking forward to go to Houston and seeing things up close and personal, obviously educating myself. I hope you're able to be there. Hopefully the schedules align. Some more good will will come out of this, more awareness, exactly of all the great work that's going on inside of NASA. Well, Looney Walker being another NBA player who talked about the Earth, his comments weren't as ridiculous as others, but still very out there. Walker might play and be compared to Victor Oladipo, but he does interviews like Kyrie Irving. During the Combine in Chicago, Walker dropped a conspiracy of his own that would even impress Kyrie, and that is that Walker thinks the Earth is an illusion. During an interview after the Combine, Walker said, the Earth is not flat in my opinion, but the Earth on my conspiracy is definitely an illusion. That's my conspiracy. Later in that interview, Walker explained a little bit about why he thinks the world is an illusion, and he said, when you talk about facts and things of that nature, it's amazing to me that we've discovered so much about this world, yet we don't know anything about this world. The Earth is not flat in my opinion, but scientists have reported as well that the world we live in could very well be a vast and complex hologram. Walker isn't the only one who believes this theory. One of the most well-known people on Earth, Elon Musk, also thinks we live in a complex computer simulation designed by people much more intelligent than us. While on Joe Rogan's podcast, Elon had a lot to say about the particular conspiracy. During the podcast, he said, If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then games will be indistinguishable from reality or civilization will end. One of those two things will occur. Therefore, we're most likely in a simulation because we exist. I think most likely, I think this is just about probability. There are many, many simulation. You might as well call them reality or you could call them the multiverse. With LeBron James having such a powerful voice, almost everything he said is taken in a serious matter. LeBron's arguably the greatest player in NBA history. And he doesn't normally get involved with the media or anything, but in 2017, he brought up his conspiracy theory and why the NBA is against arresting players. During an interview, James was asked about Commissioner Adam Silver's warning to NBA teams about their star players sitting out during nationally televised games. The superstar theorized that the NBA didn't care about the San Antonio Spurs head coach Greg Popovich sitting out his players, but when the king decided to sit out, everyone starts to notice. While on the interview with cleveland.com, James had this to say about the topic, I'll understand why it's become a problem now, because I started to sit out a couple games. Listen, Pop's been doing this for 10, 12, 15 years. Everyone was like, you know what? That's the smartest thing Pop has ever done. Give his guys a couple of games off and they go win five championships. It's the smartest thing. But some of our coaches in our league don't have the stature that Pop has. And our head coach Tyronn Lue doesn't have it, so he gets killed for it. The NBA stepped in after the Golden State Warriors set Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Gidala for their prime time game against the Spurs. But it's not the first time the NBA has gone after teams for resting their stars. Back in 2012, Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs refined $250,000 for resting Tim Duncan, Manu Janobli, Tony Parker, and Danny Green before their televised game against Lebron and the Miami Heat 2012 When Joël Embiid having an ego almost as big as him, he always gets to talking on Twitter. And recently, he said some pretty ridiculous stuff. There's no question that Joël Embiid is lacking confidence, and it might be a little much for people to deal with. And some people think we need more people like him. After winning us the Boston Celtics with a score of 118 to 115, Embiid finished the game with 37 points, 22 rebounds, and 21 of 22 from the free throw line in 41 minutes. During Embiid's interview after the game, he was asked, how do you describe your performance tonight? And he said, this is why I'm the best player in the league. There's no denying that he's one of the best centers in the league, but to be the best player in the entire NBA amongst players like Lebron James and Yonisante De Combo might be going too far. But after the next game against the Hawks, when they won 129 to 112, Embiid had a career high of 49 points, and he was asked in an interview after the game to explain his comments and give reasons why he thinks he's the best player in the league. Embiid said his comment was blown out of proportion. He just thinks he should be in the conversation of the top players in the league. During his interview, he said, What I said was that, all-star game 4th quarter, I'm out there with some of the guys that are considered the best in the world. I'm out there just dominating, being unstoppable, doing whatever I want, especially in the post. So to me, I just felt like that was a chance for me to prove that I deserve being in that conversation, of being the best player in the world. Ayo dawg, I'm going to need you to click on this video on the screen, bro.

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