Basketball Odds – Who Will Globetrotters Face Now?

The most shocking decision of this basketball off-season was not DeAndre Jordan reneging on his agreement to join the Mavericks, nor was it the Cavaliers’ perceived unwillingness to do a longterm deal with Tristan Thompson. No, the most jaw-dropping news in the hoops world came last week when we learned the Washington Generals would no longer be getting their asses handed to them by the Harlem Globetrotters.

Proverbial punching bags for over six decades, the Generals – and their longest losing streak in sports – are coming to a merciful end. Sometimes the team changed its name to the New Jersey Reds or Boston Shamrocks for a night; but no matter what uniform the players put on, the team was always fundamentally sound and hilariously over-matched.

There is no official record of how many times the Generals fell at the hands of the Globetrotters, but it’s somewhere in the tens of thousands. (Founder and longtime coach Red Klotz had a record of about six wins to 14,000 losses.) Now, as they disappear into the footnotes of sports history, the organization will always have the memories of the laughter and enjoyment they brought people, or were at least adjacent to.

Oh, and they’ll always have that thrilling upset they pulled off in 1971, and that’s not nothing.

The big question now is: whose heads will the Globetrotters be bouncing the ball off next? The move away from Washington will provide an opportunity for other terrible teams to step up and fall victim to the ridiculous antics and the seemingly unstoppable weave that Harlem has “perfected”.

Apparently, the Globetrotters next game is in October in Helsinki. Here are our odds for who they might be playing against.

Odds on who the Globetrotters next opponent will be:

• New York Knicks – 19/1
• Audentese SG/Noortekoondis – 134/1
• Kevin Hart and the Celebrity All-Stars – 716/1
• Duke University – 2,500/1
• Dennis Rodman, Kim Jong-un, and the North Korean All-Stars – 13,000/1

The Knicks are the obvious choice, as they’ve been mastering losing over the past decade, and a rivalry with Harlem is only natural. Audentese SG/Noortekoondis represents the worst team in the Estonian basketball league, which itself is not a great league. While Duke may seem too good to be on here, I think we can all agree that it would be nice to see them lose more … and to occasionally get hit in the head with a basketball. (Ok, maybe that should only happen to their fans.) Plus, Coach K loves his fundamental basketball.

Odds the Globetrotters lose their next game: 1,000/1

• No doubt the team is due for a loss, just be careful not to bet on it.

(Photo Credit: Cpl. Joey Holeman (https://www.dvidshub.net/image/1697866) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)