I’m not much of a dancer, not since that time that a preacher banned dancing in my town and my family moved away right before a rebellious teenager arrived and showed everyone that dancing is actually fun. But the word on the streets these days is that all the cool hepcats and daddy-O’s are getting funky to a new little move called the Harlem Shake.

Unfortunately, a Harlem Shake is not a Dairy Queen Blizzard mixed with cognac as I originally hoped, and as our Warming Glow comrade Josh Kurp previously pointed out, it is a strange dance craze along the lines of Psy’s “Gangnam Style” and Oprah’s* “twerk”. Basically, you just shake your arms like a car dealership balloon guy and hope that no one calls an ambulance for that “crazy drunk a-hole” having a seizure. Even the Norwegian army is getting in on the action.

And because they’re hip to all the new styles, the Dallas Mavericks players made their own Harlem Shake video and it’s as strange as everything else they’ve ever done.

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Two weeks ago, we shared with you the story of WWE Superstar Daniel Bryan visiting a sick little boy in the hospital and letting the kid tap him out. It was heartwarming, and a reminder that sometimes the world of sports can be good to people, and not just soul-crushing and full of sex tapes.

In that spirit, here’s a clip of Dirk Nowitzki visiting Will Kolassa at the Dallas Children’s Medical Center over the holidays, giving him an iPod and playing a little one-on-one. Oh, and when he’s done, he helps Will film a comedy vignette about why he missed practice. Sports celebrities do stuff like this all the time, and in a better world we’d only be sharing news like this. Dirk is an awesome guy, and this kid gets the memory of scoring a bucket on Dirk Nowitzki for the rest of his life.

Of course, my favorite part of the video is Dirk outfitted in the biggest scrubs in history, moving around all gangly and reminding me way too much of Dr. Satan from House Of 1,000 Corpses. Here, see for yourself:

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Last week we featured a video of the Dallas Mavericks murmuring their way through ‘Sleigh Ride,’ and if you thought that’d be the end of their wacky Christmas updates, you are underestimating a 12-13 team with nothing better to do.

Today’s installment in what I hope is a Dallas Mavericks Christmas Trilogy is Dirk Gives Presents To His Mavs Teammates, a short film about “Santa Dirk” giving Angry Birds boxers, rotary phones, ‘Saved By The Bell’ sweatshirts and Viking helmets to his fellow Mavericks. It also features O.J. Mayo delivering the best line of dialogue I’ve heard in months:

“Yo, Dirk got me a Christmas gift, I wonder what it is.”

Nailed it.

Anyway, you’ll want to watch this clip. Shake Weights are involved.

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Back in November, I tasked the With Leather readers with choosing an NBA team for me to support, and the unanimous decision was the Houston Rockets. I’ve done my best to be a Rockets fan, weathering a James Harden sprained ankle and every Jeremy Lin game that wasn’t his one good one, but this clip of the team singing the Hanukkah classic, ‘I Have A Little Dreidel,’ may be a bridge too far. Is there a way to classify this anti-Semitic?

Seriously though, I know it’s all in good fun, but I think the holiday updates are getting to me. At least you guys didn’t try to make me a Mavericks fan. Here are those poor guys trying to sing ‘Sleigh Ride.’

“Trying” is the key word, here.

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Despite the fact that they’ve been playing without their star forward, Dirk Nowitzki, the Dallas Mavericks are finally enjoying a little success with a nice little 3-game winning streak that has pushed Mark Cuban’s underachievers above .500 for the first time since Nov. 21. And to make that good news even better, it seems that Nowitzki will be back… eventually. Bah, who needs injury updates and reports when you’re winning, right Mavs fans?

That said, the Boston Celtics will win tonight.

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For my money, there’s no greater MS Paint artist in this generation or any other, for that matter (suck it, Picasso), than our own Danger Guerrero. His efforts within this specific medium have been unparalleled over the decades that I’ve known him, and I believe that he has no less than 75 works currently hanging in the Smithsonian and the Louvre. Do not quote me on that number, as it may be off just a tad.

However, despite the important life lessons that we were given by The Highlander series, there doesn’t have to be only one, and I recently stumbled upon the works of another outstanding MS Paint artist (pronounced ar-teest) who sadly remains anonymous at this current time. But like most great reclusive artists of the last several centuries and great artistic periods, this unknown person got his or her start on Tumblr, with the site “Great NBA Moments”.

Sure enough, this collection of artwork re-captures some of the greatest moments in NBA history through the stunning use of basic colors and brushes that only MS Paint can provide. Included in these incredible works are Michael Jordan’s iconic game-winning jumpshot, Dirk Nowitzki’s three-pointer in Game 5 of the 2011 NBA Finals and even the cover of the video game masterpiece, Shaq Fu.

Short of Larry Bird sharing a milkshake with Skeletor or any of the sketches that we’ve previously viewed from the artists at Double Dribble, this is probably the best NBA art that you will see this year. While there are many more beautiful works available at Great NBA Moments, I have included some of my favorites in this week’s With Leather Wild Art Gallery.

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