When you see King's Landing in Game of Thrones, the city you’re really seeing is Dubrovnik, Croatia. The location is absolutely gorgeous, and it perfectly captures the medieval seaside town in the fantasy series. Obviously, when they film in places like this or Cáceres, Spain (which is where King's Landing scenes are filmed in House of the Dragon), modern buildings and locations can’t be shown. So, when the internet found out that there’s a gorgeous basketball court that overlooks Dubrovnik they couldn’t help but make all the NBA jokes.
While House of the Dragon Season 2 airs on the 2024 TV schedule, a tweet has been going viral about the fact that there’s a basketball court in Dubrovnik that has a perfect view of the city. @KenniMiddleton posted a gorgeous photo of it, and they joked that King's Landing apparently has a basketball court:
Yoooo Kings Landing has a basketball court. House of the Dragon about to go crazy. pic.twitter.com/FpLDYen5c9July 8, 2024
Now, over 60 million people have viewed the post, and thousands have interacted with it. Considering how meme-able every episode of House of the Dragon is – fans were literally just dragging Criston Cole and comparing Otto Hightower to Kris Jenner a few weeks ago – it makes sense that GOT and NBA fans couldn’t wait to joke about this realization.
Beginning this round-up with the show that started it all, this fan joked about how if they had been at Oberyn Martell's (Pedro Pascal) final battle, they would have been yelling at him like this Golden State coach was on the sidelines:
Me to Oberyn when he starts talking shit on game point https://t.co/UWa1j5wSha pic.twitter.com/WOoOWwZmR3July 9, 2024
Others were cracking quips about what would happen if Jon Snow wasn’t selected for the all-star team, using this viral clip of Isaiah Thomas to illustrate the point:
Jon Snow after not getting picked for the North All-Stars https://t.co/dMHtTjIZyO pic.twitter.com/06D7hVBiZTJuly 10, 2024
One fan decided to poke fun at King's Landing regular, Joffrey, and his legendary death scene. Using a clip of a Spurs player casually taking a drink of blue Gatorade, they posted:
Joffrey drinking poisoned Gatorade https://t.co/eIrxjpdxt0 pic.twitter.com/CDZaRtMZ0WJuly 9, 2024
Moving over to House of the Dragon, NBA fans had some stellar jokes for that crew, especially after the brutal fourth episode. For example, when it comes to the Targaryen family tree, we’re drafting Aemond and Vhagar in the first round, as this hilarious tweet pointed out:
Aemond and Vhagar on the sneak pick and roll pic.twitter.com/djWlstlFmVJuly 9, 2024
Meanwhile, in another comment, fans were noting how they’d be trying to trip, foul and generally mess with Criston Cole:
Me to Cristen Cole every chance I get: pic.twitter.com/e1vChMxJ6WJuly 9, 2024
Although let’s be real here, if Cole were in a game, he’d foul himself out immediately. Homeboy cannot regulate his emotions and impulses that well, and he’d 100% get a foul for hanging on the rim for too long or faking a fall.
All around, these jokes about the NBA and Game of Thrones are hilarious, and the fact that they were inspired by the basketball court that’s actually in the real King's Landing makes it even better.
While you sadly can’t see this basketball court in Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, you can see all the characters we’ve discussed by streaming the entire OG series and the first two installments of its prequel (which airs new episodes every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET) with a Max subscription.
