The highly anticipated NBA regular season tipped off Tuesday night with two marquee matchups featuring some of the sport’s biggest names. And while the first game between the New Orleans Pelicans and the defending champion Toronto Raptors didn’t disappoint with a close game, the second contest between the LeBron James-led Los Angeles Lakers and crosstown rivals Los Angeles Clippers failed to live up to many of its expectations.
Twitter users noticed, and then some.
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But it wasn’t just the players on the court who got some hilarious, if not malicious, meme and gif treatments. Some of the social media ridicule was aimed at the color commentators, too.
Chris Webber, the consistent target of online hate whenever he announces games, worked the first contest and immediately began trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons.
But Reggie Miller, not to be outdone, made some of his own Twitter traction while announcing the Lakers game when he referred to Chicago as a state.
But it was the Lakers’ team as a whole that many NBA fans on Twitter found to be suspect. Thousands of tweets even tried to resurrect Carmelo Anthony, the exiled free agent who may or may not have been cracking a wry smile watching the Lakers lose after the team reportedly snubbed him for a roster spot. Fans suggested Melo deserved a roster spot over the hodgepodge of players competing in the losing effort. Outside of newly acquired star Anthony Davis and LeBron James, the latter of whom had a lackluster showing in the loss, the rest of the team seemed to leave a lot to be desired.
Dwight Howard, who signed with the Lakers in the summer after enduring a season of injury and ridicule last year, was back to being ridiculed Tuesday night after he scored only three points in 19 minutes. Howard, who stands at nearly 7 feet tall, was mocked for how his shorts appeared to fit him and had a dunk attempt blocked by the Clippers’ star player and defensive ace, Kawhi Leonard (the same guy who went viral over the summer for saying “What it dooo, baybeee?”), who is shorter at 6 foot, 7 inches.
Howard and the Lakers’ other center, JaVale McGee, combined for fewer rebounds than Patrick Beverley, the Clippers’ energetic starting point guard who is just 6’1.
Fresh off an NBA title with Golden State in June, point guard Quinn Cook signed with the Lakers in the offseason. But his first official game in purple and gold was a wash, as he missed the same wide-open shots that he routinely made for the Warriors. Twitter users took notice, and then some. The Lakers’ Kentavious Caldwell-Pope also got similar treatment for his own underwhelming effort.
And even though it was just the first game of the season, there were apparently some heavy coaching implications going into the Lakers game, in particular. Many people speculated that Lakers Head Coach Frank Vogel was just a temporary stand-in until he gets fired in the middle of the season and replaced by Assistant Coach Jason Kidd. Tuesday night’s loss didn’t help ease those rumors.
Aside from some comedic relief, the tweets were all basically inconsequential. But they added some levity to what many people felt was a disappointing opening night of the 2019-2020 NBA season. Scroll down to see some more hilarious Twitter reactions from NBA fans who watched Tuesday night’s pair of season-opening games.