It’s that time of year. NFL Draft on the horizon, March Madness in full swing.

But around here, the league never stops.

And instead of diving into Zeke Nnaji’s long-term development or the Bulls’ late-season pivot (don’t be shocked to see that soon), we’re taking a quick detour.

A trip down memory lane to revisit one of the NBA’s strangest stories:

The time a veteran J.R. Smith was suspended for hurling a bowl of hot soup at an assistant coach.

Also—if this soup story doesn’t fill you up, go check the latest and greatest from the halfpast*noon YouTube channel: The Small Market Problem.

Murky Waters

It wasn’t all sunshine and roses out in Cleveland in 2018.

After Golden State made their league-altering addition, no team in the league was scrambling more than the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Their greatest antagonist had just leveled up, dramatically. There was pressure in the air, a need to evolve. And no 7-foot demigod walking through the door.

There was talk of chemistry issues, murmurs of malcontents. No one knew what was real and what was fake, but where there’s smoke, we assume there’s fire.

A One Game Suspension

It was in that wary environment that the news broke. JR Smith, the key spark plug and highly identifiable role player, had been suspended for one game due to “detrimental conduct to the team”.

That was vague. Intentionally vague to give them time to deal with the situation, but anything that isn’t concrete leaves a whole lot of room for interpretation and speculation, and the public did a whole lot of both. 

Some wondered if this was the beginning of the end, if the locker room had finally boiled over. But all we really knew was that JR Smith did something “detrimental to the team”.

Hot Soup

Days passed. We got more information, but somehow, less clarity.

J.R. had thrown a bowl of hot soup. At a coach. Damon Jones. That was it. That was the story.

No motive. No injury report. No quote from the kitchen staff.

Just a flying bowl of broth and speculation on the side.

No one knew how seriously to take it, how long it would linger, or if it even mattered. Of course, you don’t hurl heated liquids at colleagues, or superiors, for no reason at all, but what reason could explain this?

A Life of its Own

Internally, it ended with a one-game timeout. But externally, it became something else. A legend.

Memes erupted. Fans debated soup types like it was a Finals matchup. Commentators wondered how you rebuild trust after a liquid-based betrayal.

It was absurd. And it was everywhere. As the story drifted further from reality, it only grew stronger.

From Twitter to Instagram, YouTube to Facebook, everyone who remotely followed the NBA had a picture to share or a thought to articulate, as the topic drifted further from reality one post at a time.

Just Smoke and Mirrors

Years later, Smith went on The Old Man and The Three with JJ Redick, and in the waning moments of the podcast, they addressed it, and we got our answers.

It was the result of Damon Jones not knowing when to leave JR alone, it had no fallout within the organization, and most importantly, it was tomato-based chicken tortilla soup.

A refreshingly lighthearted end to something that never felt serious in the first place. But maybe that’s the takeaway.

If the headline feels surreal, the story probably is too. The league may give us rivalries and dynasties… but sometimes, it just gives us soup.