The N.B.A. playoffs are zooming along, with another dream matchup seemingly in the offing: the Warriors versus the Cavs in the Finals. But what if this is just a pre-ordained script, with the refs, the owners, and the league all in collusion to produce a repeat of last year’s high-rated showdown? The fix is in, and the joke is on us. Wake up, sheeple! These are the sorts of thoughts that you’ll have if you watch enough videos by Mike Korzemba, a twentysomething YouTuber who specializes in N.B.A. conspiracy theories, counterfactuals, and what-ifs.
His signature and most-watched video (six million views) is “Was Michael Jordan’s Retirement A Secret Suspension By David Stern?” Korzemba lays out a somewhat convincing case for a theory that has long fascinated N.B.A. fans: namely, that Jordan, at the pinnacle of his N.B.A. prowess, chose to retire and become a baseball player because Stern secretly suspended him to protect the league from his out-of-control gambling habit. The video relies on period footage enhanced with cheesy “X-Files” music, narrated by Korzemba in breathless stop-start fashion. It all seems so silly—but, wait, isn’t it kind of weird that Jordan, in his retirement press conference, said that he would return to basketball “if David Stern lets me back in the league”? Korzemba also entertainingly pokes at the central mystery: why, really, really, would Jordan, one of the most extreme competitors of all time, walk away to flail at another sport?
More bizarre, yet somehow more compelling, is Korzemba’s two-minute Zapruder-style breakdown of David Stern choosing the envelope that determined which team would pick first in the 1985 draft, and therefore earn the right to sign Patrick Ewing. The footage includes a giant rotating ball filled with envelopes, a potentially compromised accountant, and a suspiciously complex envelope grab by Stern—isn’t it kind of weird that the envelope he chose is noticeably bent at one of its corners? Just watch and see and, maybe, believe. Awaiting you elsewhere on the conspiracy playlist: “Did The 2006 NBA Finals Prove That The NBA is RIGGED?” and “Was Michael Jordan's ‘Flu Game’ Really a Hangover?”
For his counterfactual histories, Korzemba relies on the tools of the N.B.A. 2K videogame series, which include life-like graphics and, most important, the ability to switch players into different uniforms. His “What If Stephen Curry Was Drafted By The Knicks?” is a masterly nineteen minutes of trolling New York fans. This wrinkle in history, in the 2009 draft, sets off a cascade of events, “Back to the Future”-style, that sees the Knicks in 2017 still without a championship and Curry without a league M.V.P. award. It turns out great for the James Harden-led Phoenix Suns, though.
Diving further into the channel, one finds the simulated games that Korzemba creates using 2K’s gameplay algorithms. Would the 1992 Dream Team beat the 2008 Redeem Team? What if Magic Johnson and Larry Bird played in the modern N.B.A.? A surreal highpoint, for me, was this scenario: “What If a Team of Michael Jordans Played a Team of Lebron James?” The lineups are out of science fiction—1989 M.J. at point guard and 1992 Jordan at power forward versus 2012 LeBron at small forward and 2016 LeBron at center, and so on. Addictive. Next: “What If The Greatest NBA All Stars of All Time Played Each Other?” That would be Wilt Chamberlain at center for the East, lining up against Shaquille O’Neal for the West. Dr. J and The Big O as bench players. Click, and the pixelated visions of Kobe shooting a fadeaway over Jordan stream past like a pleasant daydream, a Valhalla of sports nonsense.
