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Every NBA Team’s Star Wars Counterpart

By Gerald Bourguet

TOP IMAGE: Jan 25, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant (35) defends Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) in the second quarter at Quicken Loans Arena. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports BOTTOM IMAGE: Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, Photo Credit: Disney
TOP IMAGE: Jan 25, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant (35) defends Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) in the second quarter at Quicken Loans Arena. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports BOTTOM IMAGE: Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, Photo Credit: Disney /
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TOP IMAGE: Jan 25, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant (35) defends Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) in the second quarter at Quicken Loans Arena. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports BOTTOM IMAGE: Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, Photo Credit: Disney /

Hello fellow Star Wars nerds and NBA fanatics! Today is a great day for professional basketball fans, with 12 games on the NBA slate for tonight, but it’s also a great day for the entire United States of America with Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens now open in theaters.

In honor of such a momentous day, we’re going to take a break from more serious basketball analysis to provide you with something that will get you in the right mindset for the latest entry in the Star Wars saga. Today, we’ll be comparing each and every team in the NBA to the character that most closely resembles their Star Wars counterpart.

Full disclosure: This is the nerdiest thing I have ever done. Another full disclosure: I’m not sure I’ve ever been prouder of myself. For those of you who don’t like Star Wars, feel free to skim. But for those of you NBA followers who also know every detail of the Star Wars universe like I do, this is the piece for you!

A few ground rules before we begin:

  1. This list only includes characters from the films. While I love the Expanded Universe and cartoon TV shows as much as anyone, we’d be here all day otherwise.
  2. Since I have not seen Episode VII yet, I also avoided using characters from the latest entry. This allows us to avoid spoilers from The Force Awakens, plus if I had seen it yesterday, I wouldn’t have been able to write this piece in the first place because I’d still probably be waiting in line.
  3. We’ll be trying to keep each team’s identity to its current iteration. There will be a few notable exceptions, but these comparisons will mostly revolve around the current state of the team rather than the franchise’s history as a whole.
  4. I swear, I don’t hate your team and even if I did, I’d hate every team equally. So if a comparison offends you, take a deep breath, remember that you’re reading an article comparing NBA teams and Star Wars characters, and I promise you’ll feel better.

Let’s begin:

A long time ago, in an NBA galaxy far, far away….

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