If you read about the 1954 NBA Finals, they sound like they were super exciting. The Minneapolis Lakers beat the Syracuse Nationals in a seven-game series to win their third straight title and their sixth title in seven years. Crazy!
But if you actually watch highlights from the series, it looks…well, how do we put this? Let’s just say that pro basketball has changed a lot over the last 62 years.
Prior to Game 3 of the 2016 NBA Finals—a game that left Steph Curry and the Warriors trying to figure out how they lost by 30 points to the Cavaliers—Jimmy Kimmel invited Snoop Dogg to narrate some highlights from the ’54 Finals. And Snoop responded by dropping gems like this one during a segment called “The Hizzistory of Bizzasketball”:
This was before black men were able to play basketball. As you see, there’s no jumping, no dunking, no heroics. This is just basic basketball. 1954? That’s probably before black people had TVs so we wasn’t tripping.
During the segment, Snoop also had quite a bit to say about NBA players shooting Granny style from the free-throw line. It wasn’t as funny as some of the amazing “Plizzanet Earth” segments Snoop has done on Jimmy Kimmel Live, but Snoop had some excellent takes on basketball in the 1950s. Check it out for yourself in the clip above.
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