In North Korea, the Spurs Would’ve Won the Finals

In October 1996, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il issued an order encouraging basketball in schools and government organs. The following January, he published a treatise called “We Must Put Efforts to Developing Basketball.” Over the next two years, he required every high school and military squad to field a team, and he ordered counties, cities, and provincial people’s committees to build basketball facilities, along with gymnasiums at military schools.

Out of that campaign came an independent set of rules. The country’s basketball association said it was meant to promote the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s independence and the popularity of the game. The only documented use appears to have been at the Paektu Mountain Prize tournament in February 1997, though it was likely used at elite school games the following year.

No complete copy survives, and what we know of it comes from secondary sources, but the scoring went roughly like this. Secondary accounts say a dunk is worth three points. A three-pointer that goes in without touching rim or backboard is worth four, as is any shot from beyond 6.7 meters, where a separate four-point line was to be drawn. At just under 22 feet, that line would sit inside even the NBA’s corner three-point arc. Missing a free throw costs a point, and so does missing a dunk. After a team committed 11 turnovers, each additional turnover cost another point. Fans of offense would approve of zone defense being banned outright and any field goal made in the final two seconds counting for eight points.

In the anti-imperialist spirit of this issue, we spent an inordinate amount of staff time rescoring this year’s NBA Finals. As a New York–based publication, we were disappointed to find that our hometown Knicks didn’t win the series.

New York still takes the first two games in San Antonio, and the Spurs still take Game 3 at Madison Square Garden. Then Game 4 goes the other way: 122–117 San Antonio. In New York, the Knicks erased the largest deficit in Finals history, 27 points at halftime. Under the DPRK rules, the Knicks are down 13 with 30 seconds left, so though OG Anunoby’s putback with 1.2 seconds remaining counts for eight points, it still isn’t enough.

Game 5, in which New York actually won the championship, goes 98–95 to San Antonio. That leaves the Spurs up 3–2 with Game 6 at the Garden — a game that American capitalism refused to give us.