Golds and Goals moments: Trouble in the land of the Warriors

So many sports happenings, so little time – but we’re here to help. Yahoo News Singapore picks the top sporting moments of this past week, and tries to make sense of what had happened.

1. Clan of Warriors not united

Something is not right with the Golden State Warriors. The reigning National Basketball Association (NBA) champions – and overwhelming favourites to win a third straight title – are suddenly embroiled in some serious in-fighting issues. Check out what happened at the end of regulation time in their loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on 13 November:

Kevin Durant, the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player for the last two seasons, took issue with Draymond Green not passing to him, denying him a chance to win the game in regulation. The argument reportedly continued in the locker room after the game, and got really loud and heated.

The next day, the Warriors suspended Green for one game, highlighting the seriousness of the matter. When he returned after his suspension to face the Houston Rockets – a rematch of last season’s Western Conference finals – he scored zero points in a heavy and uncharacteristic 86-107 defeat for the Warriors.

Green is widely regarded as the Warriors’ defensive lynchpin, but sometimes his emotional intensity can go overboard. He has had altercations with rival players, but this time it has spilled into the dressing room. To complicate things, Durant can become a free agent after this season, and such unrest could factor in his decision to leave or stay with the Warriors.

Such intra-team disputes can either dissipate amicably after a couple of days, or fester into a poisonous dressing-room atmosphere. With Green’s volatile nature, the situation is unpredictable, even though head coach Steve Kerr is intent on making sure the team can move on positively after this episode. The next few weeks will tell fans more about the Warriors’ team chemistry, but for now, it marks the first time in a long while that they have some semblance of vulnerability.

2. LeBron James closes in on all-time scoring mark

Now for more positive NBA news: LeBron James has surpassed the late Wilt Chamberlain to become the fifth-highest scorer in NBA history with 31,425 points. This was the moment he crossed Chamberlain’s mark:

The Los Angeles Lakers star achieved this feat after 15 years in the NBA, in which he averaged 27.2 points in 1,157 games so far – a testament to his consistent brilliance. So now lies the big question: Can he overtake the four remaining players to become NBA’s all-time leading scorer?

He is 33 years old, and if he stays healthy, he could realistically play until he is 40 years old. Here are the four players in front of him in the scoring list: Michael Jordan (32,292 points), Kobe Bryant (33,643), Karl Malone (36,928) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387).

If he continues at his scoring pace, he should overtake Jordan this season, while Bryant’s mark can be reached next season. With the same scoring rate, he needs about 200 games to reach Malone’s mark. That could happen early in the 2020/21 season if he stays injury-free.

From there, James has about 50 games to reach Abdul-Jabbar’s mark, by which time he would be nearly 37 years old. For the record, Abdul-Jabbar spent 20 seasons and 1,560 games, at a rate of 24.6 points a game, to achieve his superlative scoring mark when he retired aged 42 in 1989.

So the all-time record is definitely in play for James. But the same was said of Bryant earlier in this decade, before he suffered a couple of bad injuries late in his career which derailed his attempt. Hopefully, the same fate does not befall James.

3. Rooney’s debatable England legacy

How should Wayne Rooney be remembered? The former England striker got one last match on Thursday in a friendly against the United States, coming out of his international retirement to raise funds for his new Wayne Rooney Foundation charity organisation. While he did not score in the 3-0 England win, he received a warm applause from the 68,000-strong crowd at Wembley and could be seen wiping his eyes on several occasions.

The 33-year-old’s final appearance, though, created some controversy in England, as some critics wondered why the national team bowed to his request for what seemed to be a “manufactured” appearance, ostensibly so that he can get a proper send-off from the fans. They argued that, without Rooney’s involvement, the match could have been better served for manager Gareth Southgate to further fine-tune his young side.

Controversy aside, Rooney finished his international career as England’s all-time leading scorer with 53 goals in 120 matches, eclipsing great players such as Bobby Charlton (49 goals), Gary Lineker (48) and Jimmy Greaves (44). He could have added one more goal with his very last touch against the US, but goalkeeper Brad Guzan prevented the fairytale outcome:

Yet, in his 15 years in the national side, England have constantly floundered in the World Cup and European Championship. While it is hardly Rooney’s fault that past England managers like Steve McClaren, Fabio Capello and Roy Hodgson could not build a fluent and incisive team around him, his inability to lift the team out of their doldrums have made fans ambivalent towards him.

Still, he should be remembered as the finest striker of his generation, combining immense strength with superb technique and outstanding footballing instincts. Even though too few of his goals were influential in England’s fortunes, that he lasted 15 years in the England national team without much debate meant that there was no better striker in that fallow period.

4. Eventful week at S’pore Sports Hub

It was an eventful week at the Singapore Sports Hub. First, the Fina Swimming World Cup rolled into OCBC Aquatic Centre again, and top swim stars such as Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu, Australia’s Emily Seebohm and Russia’s Vladimir Morozov competed in a bid to be crowned overall champions for the annual series.

Of course, the main drawing card was Singapore’s own Olympic champion, Joseph Schooling, who flew in from his Texas base to compete in this event for the first time since 2008. While he didn’t manage a gold medal, he did bring lots of excitement to the pool, especially in the final event on Saturday, the mixed 4x50m medley relay:

A butterfly specialist swimming the backstroke leg? That’s what Schooling did, and he smashed the national 50m short-course record in the process. Sheer class.

Then on Sunday, at the nearby OCBC Arena, Singapore’s only professional basketball team – the Slingers – opened their Asean Basketball League (ABL) season against Taiwanese side Formosa Dreamers in front of about 1,800 noisy fans.

It was not a good start, as the Slingers squandered a late one-point lead to lose 73-77. Nevertheless, they are expected to make the post-season playoffs, where they will try to land that elusive ABL title again, after finishing as runners-up in both 2016 and 2017.

Finally, the Singapore national football team will also try later this week to reach the AFF Suzuki Cup semi-finals for the first time since the 2012 edition. They must beat minnows Timor Lester by a good goal margin at their National Stadium home ground on Wednesday, before embarking on the daunting task of facing Thailand in their home ground in Bangkok on Sunday.

Just how good are Thailand? Check out their 4-2 win over Indonesia last Saturday, when they scored their opening goal straight from a corner, and their final goal with a breathtaking counter-attack:

The Thais are justifying their favourites tag, and the Lions would need all of their defensive strengths to hold them at bay and get at least a draw to give them a chance of advancing into the last four together with Thailand.

5. Macau Grand Prix rocked by harrowing crash

Sometimes, with all the latest safety enhancements on both the race cars and the driver’s gear, it is easy to forget that motor racing is a dangerous sport. When the sport first gained popularity in the 1950s, race drivers went into every race knowing that it could be their last, as deadly crashes and car explosions were grim normal occurrences back in those days.

Nowadays, drivers emerge unhurt from crashes so frequently that motor racing fans actually anticipate crashes in hope of some bonus excitement during races. It takes a lot to frighten these fans, but on Sunday, a crash of that terrifying magnitude happened at the Formula 3 Macau Grand Prix:

The driver was 17-year-old Sophia Florsch from Germany, and everyone feared for her life as safety personnel scrambled to reach the wreckage. Thankfully, she was “conscious and stable” when taken to hospital, but needed surgery for a fractured spine. Meanwhile, two photographers and a race marshal were also hospitalised with different injuries.

It could have had a much worse outcome, and it just goes to show how much risk these drivers put themselves into whenever they drive that those blinding speeds. Drivers and fans have even complained that recent safety developments are “diminishing the essence” of open-wheel racing, such as the unwieldy “halo” protective metal ring on Formula One cars this season.

The Macau crash is a reminder that, for all the safety enhancements, speed still has the capacity to hurt and even kill, and it is extremely callous to wish for a crash during a race.

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