Drake Celebrates Warriors Move with Kevin Durant

Drake
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Niraj Vora studied chemical engineering at UC Davis from 2011 to 2014. Aside from his education, Niraj Vora likes basketball, and his favorite star is Kevin Durant.

To help celebrate his move to the Golden State Warriors, Kevin Durant was recently brought out on stage during a Drake concert in Oakland, California.

Currently co-heading his Summer Sixteen tour with Future, Drake played Oakland’s Oracle Arena in mid-September. The tour had already seen Drake bring out big-name guests like Snoop Dogg, Rihanna, and Usher. During the tour’s Chicago stop, Drake brought out another NBA player in Derrick Rose, who used to play point guard for the Bulls.

The crowd was thrilled when the rapper called Durant to the stage. Drake told his fans to make some noise for Durant, before saying the team was going to get some “Big Rings” this year, a reference to a song collaboration between Drake and Future from the duo’s mixtape What a Time to Be Alive.

Though this is his first season with the Golden State Warriors, many fans are hopeful that the addition of Durant to the team will indeed lead to the team getting some “Big Rings” in the 2016-2017 season.

The Most Successful Team in NBA History

National Basketball Association (NBA)
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Niraj Vora studied chemical engineering at UC Davis. An avid basketball player, Niraj Vora spent three years playing intramural basketball at UC Davis. He continues to play the sport recreationally today.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) was established in 1946. Since that time, the Boston Celtics have won 17 NBA championships, more than any other franchise in the nation. The Celtics spent 10 years in the league before securing an NBA Finals appearance, but the team’s seven-game series triumph over the St. Louis Hawks in 1957 marked the start of a dynasty.

Boston fell in the 1958 NBA Finals in a rematch with the Hawks before running off eight consecutive championship seasons. The team won no fewer than 52 regular season games between 1958 and 1966 and twice reached the 60 win mark. Despite recording 60 wins for a third time over the course of the 1966-1967 season, the Celtics lost a division series to the Philadelphia 76ers. It was the first time Boston did not take part in the NBA Finals in 11 years.

Though the Celtics would never fully regain their dynastic identity, the franchise has enjoyed several periods of significant success. The team added 10th and 11th championships in 1968 and 1969, completing a sequence that included 11 titles in 13 years. After missing the postseason over the following two seasons, Boston regrouped to make five consecutive Eastern Conference Finals appearances, two of which led to NBA championships.

The 1980s marked another period of extended success for the Celtics. Between 1981 and 1987, the team reached five NBA Finals and won three, bringing the franchise total to 16. Boston would endure nearly three decades of mediocre basketball before the trio of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen secured the franchise’s record 17th banner in 2008.

The Star Wars Film Franchise at the Box Office

Star Wars Film Franchise
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Niraj Vora studied ceramic membranes and conductive efficiency as a chemical engineering student at UC Davis. He also played UC Davis intramural basketball. Niraj Vora enjoys reading science fiction and watching sci-fi movies, particularly the Star Wars franchise.

With the release of The Force Awakens in 2015, the Star Wars series of science fiction films surpassed James Bond as the most financially successful movie franchise in the United States. Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope, the first film in the series, was released in the summer of 1977. The movie grossed nearly $800 million worldwide on a budget of just $11 million, setting in motion one of the most influential series in all of cinema.

Three years later, Star Wars returned to the big screen. Although not quite as profitable, The Empire Strikes Back took in a still impressive $534 million at the international box office. The original trilogy of films concluded in 1983 with Return of the Jedi. With a gross of $572 million, Star Wars drew within touching distance of the Bond franchise, despite the latter having released 13 installments compared to just three Star Wars films.

Star Wars would not overtake the Bond franchise in America for another 16 years. The Phantom Menace became the first Star Wars film to gross over $1 billion and finally established Star Wars as the most profitable American franchise of all time. Subsequent releases in the second Star Wars trilogy, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, would gross $657 million and $849 million, respectively, but a new run of James Bond films starring Daniel Craig once again put the Bond franchise over the top.

More than 10 years after Revenge of the Sith, Disney released the seventh official Star Wars film and the franchise’s eighth film overall. The Force Awakens has developed into the most successful Star Wars movie ever, and one of the most popular films of all time. The Force Awakens generated in excess of $2 billion at the box office, bringing the franchise total to about $6.5 billion worldwide and $3.19 billion domestic, ahead of the Bond franchise’s $2.1 billion.