47 Fun Facts About NBA 2023

Which team won the 2023 NBA Finals?

Denver Nuggets. Every other club that came over from the ABA had already played in a Finals; Denver got there last, in its 47th NBA season, and won the title at the first attempt.

Who was unanimously named MVP of the 2023 NBA Finals?

Nikola Jokić. Picked 41st in 2014, his name scrolling along a ticker while ESPN aired a Taco Bell advert, he became the lowest draft pick ever named Finals MVP.

Which guard posted a 2023 NBA Finals triple-double?

Jamal Murray. After missing a tying three at the buzzer of Game 2, he had 34 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in Game 3 while his centre put up 32, 21 and 10, the first teammates with 30-point triple-doubles in one game.

The 2023 Miami Heat were the second eighth seed to reach the NBA Finals; which team was the first, in 1999?

New York Knicks. They scraped in at 27-23 after a lockout cut the season to 50 games, then began their run by knocking out Miami itself in the first round.

Which star said there's 'no failure in sports' after his top-seeded team lost to an eighth seed in the 2023 NBA playoffs?

Giannis Antetokounmpo. He had missed two games of Milwaukee's five-game loss to Miami with a bruised back, and told the reporter who asked about failure that it was 'the wrong question'.

Who set a Heat playoff record with 56 points in a first-round upset in 2023?

Jimmy Butler. He scored 22 in the first quarter and 21 in the fourth of a comeback win that put eighth-seeded Miami 3-1 up on the team with the NBA's best record.

Whose putback at the buzzer won Game 6 of the 2023 East finals and forced a Game 7?

Derrick White. He tipped in a teammate's miss to win 104-103 in Miami, but two nights later Boston lost Game 7 at home by 19, one win short of the first comeback from 3-0 down.

Which Memphis player called 38-year-old LeBron James 'old' during their 2023 first-round playoff series?

Dillon Brooks. 'I poke bears,' he added, but James's seventh-seeded Lakers won the series in six games and Brooks left Memphis for Houston that summer.

Which coach ended Sacramento's 16-season playoff drought in 2023 and became the NBA's first unanimous Coach of the Year?

Mike Brown. All 100 voters picked him after his first season in charge, yet the Kings fired him less than halfway through his third, in December 2024.

Who scored 50 points in Game 7 against Sacramento in 2023, the first 50-point Game 7 in NBA history?

Stephen Curry. He passed Kevin Durant's Game 7 record of 48 on Sacramento's own floor, but his new mark lasted only two weeks before it was beaten.

Which 10-time All-Star retired in May 2023 without ever playing in an NBA Finals?

Carmelo Anthony. He announced it on the very day the team that drafted him clinched its first Finals trip, 19 seasons and three Olympic golds into a career that never reached one.

On February 7, 2023, LeBron James passed whom to become the NBA's all-time leading scorer?

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He had held the record since April 1984, nearly nine months before James was born, and was in the building to embrace his successor the night it fell.

Which two players each scored 71 points in a game during the 2022-23 season?

Damian Lillard and Donovan Mitchell. Mitchell's came in an overtime win after Cleveland trailed by 21, the most points anyone had scored since Kobe Bryant's 81 in 2006, and Lillard matched it eight weeks later.

On December 27, 2022, who became the first player ever to record a 60-point, 20-rebound triple-double?

Luka Dončić. His team trailed by nine with 33 seconds left, and he forced overtime by missing a free throw on purpose and scoring off the rebound; teams in that position had gone 0-13,884 over the previous 20 seasons.

Who won the 2022-23 NBA Rookie of the Year award?

Paolo Banchero. Orlando's choice of him first overall had been a surprise after weeks of talk that it preferred Jabari Smith Jr., and he repaid it by taking 98 of the 100 first-place votes.

Which big man won the 2022-23 Defensive Player of the Year award?

Jaren Jackson Jr. He sat out the opening weeks of the season after surgery on a stress fracture in his foot, yet still led the league with 3.0 blocks a game.

Which forward won the 2022-23 Most Improved Player award in his first season with Utah?

Lauri Markkanen. Cleveland gave him up in a trade for a star guard, and in Utah he jumped from 14.8 points a game to 25.6 and made his first All-Star team.

Which Celtics guard was the 2022-23 Sixth Man of the Year?

Malcolm Brogdon. He had started every game he played for four years, then agreed to come off Boston's bench and did not start once all season.

Which brand-new award, first handed out in 2023, went to Sacramento's De'Aaron Fox?

Clutch Player of the Year. The trophy is named for Jerry West, known as 'Mr. Clutch', and Fox won it by scoring a league-high 194 points in the last five minutes of close games.

After whom did the NBA rename its Most Valuable Player trophy in 2022-23?

Michael Jordan. The trophy stands 23.6 inches tall, for his number 23 and his six titles, and sits on a five-sided base for his five MVP awards.

Whose number 6 did the NBA retire league-wide in 2022, the first such honour in its history?

Bill Russell. He had died that July at 88 after winning 11 titles in 13 seasons with Boston, and players who already wore 6 were allowed to keep it.

Who scored a record 55 points in the 2023 All-Star Game and was named its MVP?

Jayson Tatum. He beat Anthony Davis's old mark by three, helped by a playful third-quarter duel in which he and a Boston teammate on the other side took turns going one-on-one.

Where was the 2023 All-Star Game held, 30 years after the venue last hosted it?

Salt Lake City. When it last hosted, in 1993, the West won in overtime and Utah's own Karl Malone and John Stockton shared the MVP award on their home court.

Which 7-foot-4 French centre went first overall in the 2023 draft?

Victor Wembanyama. He left the stage in tears, saying 'I've got to cry', then justified the hype by taking all 99 first-place votes for Rookie of the Year.

Which team won the 2023 NBA draft lottery and with it the first overall pick?

San Antonio Spurs. It was their third lottery win; the first two had brought David Robinson in 1987 and Tim Duncan in 1997, and five championships followed.

Which Alabama forward did Charlotte take second overall in the 2023 draft, ahead of Scoot Henderson?

Brandon Miller. Charlotte brought both players back for a second round of workouts that week, then chose the wing who could play beside its point guard, LaMelo Ball.

Which twin brothers were taken with consecutive picks, fourth and fifth, in the 2023 NBA draft?

Amen and Ausar Thompson. Born a minute apart, the identical twins went to Houston and Detroit, heading in separate directions for really the first time.

Scoot Henderson, the third pick in 2023, skipped college to play for which team?

NBA G League Ignite. The league set the team up to pay top prospects who skipped college, then closed it in 2024 once college players could earn endorsement money themselves.

Which player did Milwaukee trade to Portland for Damian Lillard in 2023, only to see him win the 2024 title with Boston?

Jrue Holiday. Portland kept him for just four days before sending him on to Boston, and the next spring he was a champion again while Milwaukee went out in the first round.

Kevin Durant was traded from Brooklyn to which team in February 2023?

Phoenix Suns. They paid Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson and four first-round picks, won a single playoff series with Durant, and traded him on to Houston in 2025.

Which team traded Dorian Finney-Smith and Spencer Dinwiddie for Kyrie Irving at the 2023 deadline?

Dallas Mavericks. They missed the playoffs that spring and were fined $750,000 for resting players to protect a draft pick, yet a year later the same pairing reached the NBA Finals.

Which team won the NBA's first In-Season Tournament, beating Indiana in the December 2023 final?

Los Angeles Lakers. They won all seven of their tournament games, the last behind Anthony Davis's 41 points and 20 rebounds, then went out of the playoffs in the first round that spring.

Where were the semifinals and final of the inaugural 2023 In-Season Tournament played?

T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas. The city had no NBA team in 2023, but every club already played Summer League there each July, and Commissioner Adam Silver had taken to calling it the league's 31st franchise.

Which player did the NBA suspend for 25 games in June 2023 after a second video showed him holding a gun?

Ja Morant. He had already sat out eight games that March over the first video, and when the long ban ended in December he returned with 34 points and a buzzer-beating winner.

A six-time NBA champion sold his majority stake in which team in 2023?

Charlotte Hornets. The deal valued the team at about $3 billion; he had paid about $275 million for control in 2010, and in his 13 years in charge it never won a playoff series.

Which owner was suspended in September 2022, then sold his team to Mat Ishbia for a then-record $4 billion?

Robert Sarver. The NBA banned him for a year and fined him the maximum $10 million over workplace misconduct, and eight days later he put the Suns and the Mercury up for sale.

Which coach did Philadelphia fire in May 2023 after another second-round exit?

Doc Rivers. Philadelphia led Boston 3-2 with a home game to come, lost twice, and dismissed him two days after Game 7, his third second-round exit in three seasons there.

At 42 years and 363 days, who became the oldest player ever to appear in an NBA Finals game in June 2023?

Udonis Haslem. Undrafted in 2002, the Miami native spent all 20 of his NBA seasons with his hometown club, won three titles there, and played the last 29.8 seconds of that game.

Which country won the 2023 FIBA World Cup, beating Serbia in the final, while the USA finished fourth?

Germany. It edged the USA 113-111 in the semi-final and won all eight of its games to take a first world title, with Dennis Schröder named the tournament's MVP.

Which coach took over the Philadelphia 76ers in the summer of 2023?

Nick Nurse. Toronto had fired him that April, four years after he won the club its first championship, and Philadelphia hired him within six weeks.

Which coach led his team to the 2023 NBA title in his eighth season in charge?

Michael Malone. Sacramento had fired him 24 games into his second season as a head coach in 2014; he took his next job six months later and built a champion there.

Which Heat wing averaged 19.3 points in the 2023 East finals and nearly took the series MVP?

Caleb Martin. Undrafted, and waived by Charlotte two years earlier, he scored 26 in Game 7 in Boston and lost the series MVP vote to a teammate by a single ballot, 5-4.

After Washington got him for Bradley Beal in 2023, Chris Paul was traded on to which team?

Golden State Warriors. The club that had twice ended his title hopes with Houston became his own, and after starting every game of his first 18 seasons he came off the bench for the first time.

Which team hired Adrian Griffin as head coach for 2023-24, then fired him mid-season with a 30-13 record?

Milwaukee Bucks. He lasted just 43 games as a head coach: the team stood second in the East, but its defence had slipped and the club decided it could not wait.

Which G League guard, with only two NBA games to his name, won the 2023 Slam Dunk Contest?

Mac McClung. Three of his four dunks earned a perfect 50, and he came back to win the next two contests as well, the first player to take three in a row.

Which 2022-23 rookie broke Donovan Mitchell's record for three-pointers in a debut season?

Keegan Murray. His record-breaking 188th three came on the very night Sacramento clinched its first playoff place since 2006, and he finished the season with 206.

The Miami Heat's arena became Kaseya Center in 2023 after a naming deal with which bankrupt company ended?

FTX. The crypto exchange had signed a 19-year, $135 million deal, but it filed for bankruptcy only 17 months after its name went up on the building.