The only upside to a Mayan apocalypse going down at some point today would be the end of whoever keeps making athletes sing sports-related Christmas carols because they’re sports guys and it’s Christmas.

Yesterday we shared with you the 12 Days Of MMA Christmas (“two black eyes!” etc.), and before that it was pro wrestlers singing WWE Jingle Bells. Somewhere in-between we watched the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks sing holiday carols, but I guess that wasn’t explicitly basketball enough, so somebody got 4-pack of Santa hats and made Jason Kidd, James Harden, Blake Griffin and Chris Paul sing NBA-specific Jingle Bells.

It … might be worse than the one with wrestlers. Sample lyric:

Over the “D” he jumps, dunking all the way!

Here’s the commercial. While you’re watching it, I’ll be writing up this thing somebody just sent me of Psy and a bunch of locked-out NHL players singing a Gangnam Style remix of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful.’

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Here’s a video of Chris Paul throwing down a two-handed dunk. The Mayan apocalypse might actually be upon us.

The best part of the clip is that his own son didn’t believe it happened. Hold on to your butts, because this is the most adorable thing you’re going to read today. From Kevin Arnovitz on Twitter, by way of The Basketball Jones:

Well, technically he’s right. Maybe we should bring in Little Chris as a special guest analyst for next week’s Wednesday Dunk Battle. You know, assuming we can convince him between now and then that this is a Legitimate Dunk, and that the world doesn’t end tomorrow.

If that doesn’t count, we can always use CP3 dunking on Dwight Howard from a few years back, because reasons:

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One day I’ll get that headline to work.

Last Wednesday, With Leather dunk scientists decided that Cleveland’s Anderson Varejao faking out Dwight Howard and dunking on the rest of the Actual Lakers was the most slam dunkingest slam dunk of the week. While we struggle to properly conjugate “slam dunk,” we’ve gathered a new crop of HOT DUNKZ and ask you, the reader, to decide which one is the most slam and/or dunk.

Dunk clips and a handy selection box for your dunk of choice are included after the jump. Please take your time with these and consider which is best, because the Internet desperately needs science.

This week’s choices are:

1. Blake Griffin catching an alley-oop off the glass, because every dunk battle needs Blake Griffin in it doing something ridiculous
2. Gerald Henderson throwing down a monster dunk on Dwight Howard, because every dunk battle needs somebody making Dwight Howard look bad.
3. Danilo Gallinari alley-ooping the ball to himself against the Memphis Grizzlies.
4. Cal State San Marcos’ Daniel Redmond catching a half court alley-oop

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Slam dunks happen, and when they do, it’s important to know which one was best. Don’t ask me to explain it.

To help us objectively decide which slam dunk is best, we’ve decided to bring back our weekly poll and let you, the With Leather reader, help us with our science. Below are four dunks of note, followed by a place where you can vote on your favorite. Participation in this poll is mandatory, so please set aside your work or personal obligations to watch some videos and play Internet.

Your choices are:

1. Blake Griffin catching his 770th alley-oop of the season, authoritatively dunking it against the Chicago Bulls
2. Minnesota Golden Gopher Rodney Williams’ 360 dunk versus North Dakota State
3. JaVale McGee’s one-handed alley-oop snag against the Detroit Pistons
4. Anderson Varejao faking out Dwight Howard, dunking on Not Dwight Howard

Videos of each dunk are below.

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Thursday’s edition of S.I.’s Hot Clicks contained a lot of gems (‘sup, Ashley Sky?), but none more enjoyable and reassuring than this compilation video of NBA players airballing shots. The first day of my Houston Rockets fandom was met with Jeremy Lin throwing up a Brandon Stroud-esque airball from three-point range, so it’s nice to see everyone doing it, and not just star players from a team I’ve chosen to shackle myself to for the rest of my life.

Highlights include LeBron James’ epic lob to nothing, Dennis Rodman trying (and failing) to pull off assy trick shots and Blake Griffin being the best Blake Griffin he can be. “Two free throws, a foot short, both of them.” It’s schadenfreude masquerading as a highlight reel, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Video is below.

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I woke up to give-or-take 30 e-mails this morning. A third of them started with HI JOSH because people want links but don’t actually read the site, a third of them were “inspirational photos” from Hurricane Sandy where somebody superimposes an angel face on a storm cloud and the final third, the third I can’t get enough of, were clips of Blake Griffin being funny. Nay, hilarious.

He does this a lot. He’s sorta cornered the market on being the “funny basketball player,” assuming Metta World Peace is doing this all by accident. So far on With Leather we’ve written about Blake being stalked by a puppet version of himself, dunking in the nude, hanging out with Elmo and talking with television’s Dwight Schrute about his fear of Chinese people.

Because I can’t devote a single post to every Blake Griffin video I get, I’ve decided to lump them all together. Inside you will find:

1. Blake Griffin making INTENSE DUNK FACES.
2. Creating Conan O’Brien in NBA 2K13, then taking alley-oops from him.
3. Time traveling back to 1995 in a Kia to shoot free throws.
4. Time traveling back to 1997 to play football with himself.
5. A really concerning appearance in a Brazzers video.

Okay, almost all of those things are inside.

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