The best flagrant fouls should always involve Tyler Hansbrough.

A few years ago, I was at my local Publix buying some pregnancy tests when I ended up sharing the elevator to the parking garage with Bo Outlaw. Another guy started a conversation with him and asked if fouls were really as bad as some players made them seem, and Outlaw said that NBA players have it worse than NFL players because they don’t get pads. I scoffed at that idea and he looked me dead in the eye and said, “You try being 7-feet tall and getting thrown to the ground while you’re jumping” and I thought to myself, “Well, I’m 5-10, chubby and I don’t jump a lot, so I’ll take your word for it, Chet.”

The point of this week’s edition of “Cool Story, Bro” is that someone named Mike B or Mike 8, depending on your comprehension of fonts, made a video called the NBA Flagrant Foul Mix, and it’s an incredibly hilarious reminder that NBA players have loved beating the sh*t out of each other for a long, long time.

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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.

File photo.

Last week, Deadspin’s Tommy Craggs wrote a fantastic response to Sports Illustrated’s Thomas Lake, who penned a scathing, fart-sniffing letter to Charlotte Bobcats owner Michael Jordan about what he supposedly owed his former high school basketball coach, Pop Herring, who suffers from a mental illness, among other things. You can read Lake’s humongous pat on the back to himself here, and then I’m sure you can track down the online fundraiser that he started to really stick it to Jordan. If it helps Lake sleep better at night, then good for him, but I’m more curious about what it all represents.

At some point in the last few years, it became a trend to hate Jordan. As I pointed out during the NBA Lockout last summer, players picked him as the bad guy, because – aside from maybe Mark Cuban – Jordan is the most recognizable owner. But they also obviously picked him because he actually played the game, and they felt that he should have had their backs. I wrote that he shouldn’t, because A) he’s already done so much for paving the way to fortune for the league’s stars and B) he’s an owner now, and he has to worry about himself and his team.

Now, if people want to argue that they hate him because he sucks as an owner, I can get on board with that. However, the idea that he owes certain people something because he’s rich is just lazy. And yesterday, our friends at Buzzfeed found something even lazier.

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The folks at 2K Sports set the Twitters ablaze this morning with the news that NBA 2K13 will give gamers the chance to once again play as the 1992 U.S. Olympics Men’s Basketball Team, or the Dream Team. I don’t even play video games and I’m tempted to buy it just so I can keep assigning players to guard Magic Johnson and see if they run away. Gotta make it realistic, 2K Sports.

One interesting note about the game, though, is that the Dream Team won’t include Scottie Pippen, because the guy who has had incredible money problems wouldn’t agree to 2K Sports’ terms. But at least we’ve finally stopped that whole silly debate about whether or not the Dream Team could defeat the 2012 U.S. gold medal team. Just kidding, Michael Jordan hasn’t yet begun to fight.

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If you are anything like me, you spent a substantial chunk of your childhood parked in front of the television watching VHS tapes of people doing dunks. I mean, you did other things, too — rode your bike, chucked rocks at stuff, got grounded for cussing, etc. — but, primarily, you wore out the tape on those videocassettes while eating cereal. There were a lot of these videos released in the early-to-mid ’90s, but the gold standard was the NBA Superstars series put together by Hardwood Classics.

NBA Superstars was collection of videos that contained 3-4 minute highlight packages set to popular music from the time, typically focused on an individual player, but occasionally based on a unifying theme. The first one was released in 1990, and contained montages dedicated to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Dominique Wilkins, Charles Barkley, Isiah Thomas, and Julius Erving, as well as one about players from years past. I love it like a child. So when I found all the clips on YouTube recently, I could not have been more excited, and I felt it was important to share them all with you. Put on your doofy sweaters and grab your synthesizers, people. We’re taking a trip in the Wayback Machine.

NOTE: Did you know there is no Wikipedia entry for the NBA Superstars series? This upsets me on a number of very deep, personal levels.

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Taiwan’s Next Media Animation asks the two most important questions about LeBron James and the Miami Heat’s 2012 NBA Championship victory:

1. Will LeBron win six more, so he can be better than Michael Jordan? And
2. Why were Jesus and God blatantly interfering in LeBron’s previous games?

Number two has a less obvious answer, but watching Jesus goaltend and God flatten LeBron like a bug for traveling driving the lane is fun to watch without having to know why. Other highlights include a pretty accurate depiction of the Oklahoma City Thunder standing around like bowling pins, Michael Jordan’s M. Bison laugh and Kevin Durant having lightning powers.

Video is below. Stick around until the end for maximum Carol.

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