In order to further Slam Dunk Analysis sciences, we’re asking you, the With Leather community, to compare four of the week’s best dunks and tell us which was the most … uh, slam dunk. We’re still working on the phrasing. Anyway, watch these four dunk clips and please, take a moment to vote in the handy poll included at the bottom.
Your dunks for this week:
1. James Harden’s tomahawk slam on the Utah Jazz. 2. Carlos Boozer dunks, gets an amazing call, gets an even better reaction from Taj Gibson. 3. Jeff Green dunks on Chris Bosh, specifically. 4. Dwight Howard sucks at basketball.
Over on Reddit, or the front page of the Internet as those kids have taken to calling it, the volume of sports content has been increasing lately, which is great because what we all need is more forums through which to debate sports. But it also means that fans of specific teams now have a chance to connect on arguably the most popular site on the web, and that’s cool, because it beats going to sporting events and actually interacting with real people. That’s not sarcasm, by the way.
Fortunately, we don’t need to talk just about the Lakers, because pdxbass made a large graph that shows us just how popular each team is, and it provides a pretty interesting breakdown.
My favorite Warming Glow contributor, Josh Kurp*, sent me an email earlier with a link to a Tumblr post that featured the above picture. What you see, obviously, is a man wearing a Chicago Bulls hat with fake poop on the bill. At least I hope that’s fake poop. If it’s real poop, then we’ve got a whole different ballgame going on.
But based on the assumption that the poop is fake, I am forced to ask – why? For further head-scratching, I will refer to the person who took this strange picture, @cordjefferson.
The “ultimate Brian Scalabrine highlight video”, which is mostly announcers going HEH HEH THE WHITE MAMBA and being shocked whenever he makes a shot. Glorious. (via Brobible)
In a video that’s destroying the Internet today (we got it from Sports Glory, but it originated at 2012 Mamba), the old “Is Kobe Bryant better than Michael Jordan?” argument (also known as the “nobody is better than Michael Jordan” argument) gets a new look with two minutes of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan making identical shots. Identical shots. And while you could probably dig through enough NBA footage to find two minutes of Jordan making the same shots as, I don’t know, Carlos Delfino, it’s still pretty mesmerizing to watch.
An important thing to remember is that timing, memories and cultural impact have a lot to do with who fans think is the “greatest” anything. It’s also important to remember that an increase in competition, changes in style of play and even performance enhancing drugs (and drug regulations) are almost always ignored when modern players try to win these arguments. Is Barry Bonds better than Babe Ruth? Barry’s stats are better, and Babe never had to play pro ball against black people, but STEROIDS YOU GUYS and Babe was also a great pitcher and what, are you kidding me?
Is there a way for us to eventually say as a sports-people, “okay, this guy is better than the previous best player ever”? How does that even happen? Let us know what you think in the comments. Insulting Scottie Pippen gets you bonus points.
One of my all-time favorite things to do is scour the depths of Etsy for random crap, because it’s just amazing how much awesomely ridiculous stuff people can create and sell on the Internet these days. But nothing gets my PayPal account pumping more than the sports gear that dedicated Etsy sellers have whipped up, and that’s why I want to devote this new weekly feature to finding my favorite Etsy sports merchandise, starting with that Tim Tebow pillar candle above.
Sure, I just pointed out that Tebow’s got a team of trademark-happy lawyers that are suing people for making things that don’t even mention the New York Jets backup QB’s name, but that’s not going to stop any of us from grabbing one of these $5 candles and letting the Jets fan upstairs know that we’re pushing for Tebow to get the other New York team a Super Bowl win.
After the jump, get in the gift-giving mood, because Etsy’s got every sport covered…