Last week’s Wednesday Dunk Battle was one of the most hotly contested ever, pitting LeBron James and Blake Griffin (the two most prolific Wednesday Dunk Battlers of the season) against a sea otter and a guy who dunked through fire. The sea otter murdered them. But still, the idea is that the Wednesday Dunk Battle is HEATING UP, and this week we see who dares follow in Eddie the Sea Otter’s footsteps. Yes, LeBron James is in this one, too. Yes, I tried to see how many times I could write “Wednesday Dunk Battle” in one paragraph.

This week’s dunks:

1. Past-his-prime Kobe Bryant goes FULL PRIME on Josh Smith.
2. LeBron James runs a slant route en route to his one millionth alley-oop from Dwyane Wade.
3. Baylor’s Brittney Griner dunks on what might as well be everyone from Kansas State.
4. Louisville’s Chane Behanan uses the anger he’s felt trying to spell “Shane Bohannon” in his lifetime and brutally dunks over DePaul guard Worrel Clahar, who has NO IDEA what to spell.

You make the call. Please remember that your science is appreciated, and that voting in the poll below officially makes you a scientist. OF BASKETBALL DUNKS.

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While most NBA fans are probably glued to Chris Broussard’s Twitter account to check out his breaking NBA trade deadline news that Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowski already broke 5 minutes earlier, some people are still trying to get to the bottom of the season’s biggest controversy – Lil Wayne’s beef with the Miami Heat.

In case you forgot, Weezy claimed that he was removed from a recent Heat game because he was cheering for his favorite team, the Los Angeles Lakers. That’s his story – he was simply cheering for the Lakers in the Heat’s arena and the police made him leave for that. Just that. Not because he also allegedly threatened another fan by motioning that he had a gun. Simply because he was cheering for the Lakers.

Since then, the Heat revealed that Wayne left on his own accord, but the rapper still insisted that he’d been banned by the NBA from all league events, which led some conspiracy theorists to believe that noted Illuminati front man and Brooklyn Nets minority owner Jay Z was behind it all. The NBA – where rappers being bigger news than players happens.

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Seeing as David Stern and the NBA prefer putting superstar-led teams on ESPN and TNT, and AT&T U-Verse doesn’t have NBA TV available for po’ folk like me, I don’t get to watch Javale McGee’s crazy ass play as much as I’d like to. So I have to depend on Twitter and the great Denver bloggers and writers that I follow to fill me in on the crazy things he says or does each week. It also helps that McGee has his own Twitter account, and his Goofus ways inspire a new meme practically every other week (see above).

But every once in a while, McGee stops sipping the crazy juice long enough to show a flash of brilliance that could be put in the shoe box of evidence that he uses to proclaim his status as one of the best centers in the NBA. Well, at least he’s paid like he believes that.

Last night was one of those brilliant moments, as McGee was on the receiving end of a ¾-court pass from Andre Miller for an alley-oop jam. Of course, the Nuggets lost to the Brooklyn Nets, 119-108, but it’s still nice that McGee flashed a little potential.

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The Wednesday Dunk Battle is your most important weekly stop as a With Leather reader. Your viewing of a collection of dunks and decision regarding which dunk was the most Slam Dunk is important not only for editor-to-patron relations, but for SCIENCE, because deciding which dunks are best is science’s primary goal.

Last week’s winner (in a landslide) was Kobe Bryant. This week’s showdown features Dwyane Wade, Blake Griffin, a jumble of consonants and what may or may not be Teenage Gronkowski back for dunking glory.

This week’s contestants:

1. It says “DeMar DeRozan dunks on Timofey Mozgov” but I refuse to believe that those are peoples’ names
2. Back-to-back dunks from DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin
3. Dwyane Wade’s “showtime reverse”
4. Trevor Wages from the COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES (~!) shatters the backboard

Please consult the dunk clips and make your decision below.

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You may have seen people Tweetering or Tumbling about an awesome play by the Miami Heat’s stars last night or this morning, but let me preface this by saying that it’s not the most amazeball moment in NBA history that some people are making it out to be. That said, here’s the setup.

The first place Miami Heat hosted the Houston Rockets last night, and LeBron James and Co. had their hands full with a team that just tied the NBA record for three-pointers in a game one night earlier with a 140-109 thrashing of the Golden State Warriors. However, the Heat were still able to squeak out a 114-108 win over Houston thanks to James and Dwyane Wade combining for 63 points.

But the play du jour came with 7:11 left in the 3rd quarter, as Udonis Haslem easily won a jump ball, and Wade did the gosh darn dirty from there by throwing a Flacco-esque pass across ¾ of the court to a wide open James, who then laid the ball in for the quick and easy score. It really was a thing of beauty.

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Earlier this month, Shane Battier of the Miami Heat uploaded a video of himself dressed like a ship’s captain, singing the theme to ‘The Love Boat.’ It was the worst THE BEST, advertised his second annual “South Beach Battioke” celebrity karaoke event, and allowed me to make a joke about LeBron James singing Pretty Ricky. As it turns out … I wasn’t that far off.

Behold, South Beach Battioke 2 (RETALIATION~) featuring LeBron James and Dwyane Wade serenading a “lucky fan” with the Gabrielle/East 17 classic ‘If You Ever.’ The clip starts kicking your ass right away with LeBron’s hip-gyrating take on Michael Jackson’s ‘Rock With You,’ then moves right into the LBJ/Wade ‘The Boy Is Mine’-style seduction.

I do not see anybody singing TV theme songs, but the clip is only 7 minutes long, so I’ll assume Mike Miller spent the next hour rocking out to The Rembrandts.

[h/t to Cosby Sweaters]