Outside The Box is a conspiracy theory-supporting organisation at its core — and sport has always shown an ability to provide for some wacky speculation.
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We got thinking about this topic when Adelaide ruckman Reilly O'Brien “accidentally” tweeted out some rather unkind game notes about West Coast's Nic Naitanui last week, blaming his broken phone for sending them out.
I don't know about you, but when my phone goes ballistic it doesn't just open up my notes app, copy and paste some of them, open Twitter and send out a tweet — the likelihood of O'Brien's story being true is just so low.
That got us thinking as to why he's running with such a ridiculous story — what are we covering up?
Did a teammate stitch him up and O'Brien figured the best thing to do was to cop it on the chin and own the fallout?
Or was there a more sinister reason behind it? Was O'Brien going with an ambition ploy to try and get in NicNat's head?
This is the beauty of sporting conspiracy theories — the possibilities are endless, and you literally can never be proven wrong.
With that in mind, here's some favourite famous examples through sporting history.
Michael Jordan's “retirement”
Famously, NBA GOAT Michael Jordan first retired from the sport in 1993, off the back of three consecutive titles with the Chicago Bulls.
He cited a loss of passion for basketball, and even went so far as to sign a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox and try his hand at baseball — he wasn't even too bad, but quit the sport in early 1995 as the MLB headed into pay dispute chaos.
Soon after, MJ was back with the Bulls — and here's where the conspiracy theory really creeps in.
Jordan had been spotted in Atlantic City at a casino gambling the night before a playoff game in 1993, and was developing quite a reputation as a bettor, with ESPN's The Last Dance touching on potential links with some unsavoury characters in that world that did not paint him in the best light.
It has been widely speculated for years that Jordan's sabbatical was a league-enforced suspension for violating gambling rules; just days after MJ announced his retirement, the NBA dropped a months-long investigation into his gambling.
A secret deal to cover up something this big would surely have been revealed by now, but it will always go down in the ranks as one of sport's all-time conspiracy theories.
The airconditioner game
This is a personal favourite; I remember thinking this had great conspiracy theory potential at the time before realising I was being stupid — and then actual mainstream media started running with it.
In the 2014 NBA Finals, San Antonio and Miami met for the title for a second straight year, and conspiracy theorists would have you believe the Spurs were intent on revenge and hatched a devious plan to gain an edge.
At San Antonio's home court, the AT&T Centre, a broken airconditioning system created a swelteringly-hot environment for game one, something the Spurs were seemingly more prepared for than the Heat — Miami superstar LeBron James cramped so badly he had to exit the match.
The theory goes the Spurs deliberately did not run the aircon to create the inferno-like conditions, having been more physically prepared throughout the match to dig in and get the win.
SB Nation's Tom Ziller dug deep on the theory; he pointed out LeBron's natural style of play is more likely to have him cramp due to his huge muscle mass, and being from northern Ohio — a cold climate — he would have minimal experience playing in heat.
Ziller added San Antonio's stars (Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Boris Diaw) had grown up in either the Caribbean or Europe, where basketball gyms typically did not have aircons.
Whether it's a coincidence or not, there's plenty of smoke around this one.
The frozen envelope
The NBA's best conspiracy theory is that commissioner David Stern rigged the 1985 Draft Lottery for the New York Knicks, so one of the league's storied franchises could land a perceived generation superstar in Patrick Ewing with the first pick — a talented youngster in New York was a marketing dream for the NBA.
Back in those days, the lottery was not done by your standard TattsLotto ball machine as it is today, but rather by the commissioner simply drawing an envelope from a big container.
It's a conspiracy theorist's dream to be honest; the most famous story is the Knicks’ envelope had been in a freezer beforehand so Stern would know which one was theirs when he felt the cold one, while a similar theory suggesting the Knicks’ envelope had a bent corner on it is also popular.
Straight up, I believe this one is just fact.
I reckon the NBA has been rigging lotteries for years (LeBron being drafted by his home state Cleveland Cavaliers and the Cavs coincidentally getting the No. 1 pick the year after LeBron left are two other great examples), so the frozen envelope will go down in history.
Fixed boxing fights
And you can't talk about sporting conspiracies without mentioning the genuinely corrupt world that is fight sports.
There are plenty of ways to rig a fight in boxing and mixed martial arts, and a variety of different reasons to do so.
A fighter can take a dive and judges can be bought off — the two most common ways to rig a fight.
Famously, the legendary 1964 fight between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston was allegedly rigged, with Liston retiring after six rounds with a shoulder injury.
Liston was a huge favourite before the fight, but was trailing early, and he did not come out of his corner for the seventh round.
The heavyweight champion of the world going down without a fight seemed a bit iffy, and considering Liston's contract was owned by the mob, this is not a tough theory to put together.