Friday Afterschool Special: Is the NBA Season Here Yet?

Say what?

Andre Iguodala spoke out on the Breakfast Club yesterday, saying that the Warriors should have lost to OKC in the Western Conference Finals. He also said that the Thunder were the best team in the playoffs.

He is aware which team won the Finals, right?

No matter how far away the NBA season is, every storyline seems to run through Oakland these days. 

The best rivalries in NBA history

The teams have won 33 the NBA's 65 championships and have met in the Finals 12 times, with the Celtics winning nine of those. Five of the 12 series have gone to seven games.

The rivalry was at its peak from 1988 to 1991, when Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan battled in the playoffs for four straight years, including three straight Eastern Conference championships.

In a series marked by brawls, long series and late-game heroics, the Heat and Knicks played each other in four straight playoff series from 1997 to 2000, with each series going to the wire.

The rivalry started with John Havlicek's inbounds steal in Game 7 of the 1965 Eastern Conference final (inset). A 1983 exhibition between the two turned into an all-out brawl.

The Bulls and Knicks met each year during Chicago's first 1990s championship three-peat, and again in 1994, when the Knicks were finally able to top the Jordan-less Bulls.

The teams combined for five straight NBA championships from 1999 to 2003, meeting in the playoffs in four of those five years.

The Spurs and Suns met in the playoffs four times during the 1990s, and five times in the 2000s after the additions of Tim Duncan and Steve Nash, respectively.

Northern California vs. Southern California, the Kings and Lakers met in the 2002 Western Conference finals, where the Lakers won in overtime in Game 7.

Speaking of which ... 

J.J. Redick took to Twitter to put to rest the competitive-balance takes about Kevin Durant's move to the Warriors:

Oladipo is a savage

See that's just uncalled for. He had to hit him with the windmill too? Obviously Russell Westbrook has been working with him on letting his anger out on the basket since his move to Oklahoma city. 

Manu didn't retire too?

We kind of thought him and Timmy D would be a package deal. Alas, we get one more season of bald spot magic and percentage-busting shots, and that is more than enough reason to tune in to Spurs games this season.

Today's Peanuts

(Photo credit: Joe Murphy /NBAE via Getty Images)