This week, the Wednesday Dunk Battle goes high concept — what, scientifically speaking, constitutes the “best slam dunk?” Does it lessen the dunk’s greatness if it’s performed in practice? What if it involves a pillar of fire and a trampoline? What if you aren’t a human being and can dunk? How do they relate to one another?

Your job, as a loyal With Leather reader, is to view the following dunks and help decide which slam dunk slammed most dunkingly. It’s important that you participate and vote in the poll at the bottom, for without you, we may never know the perfect dunk equation.

This week’s dunks:

1. The Los Angeles Clippers block/pass/dunk machine leads to a massive left-handed effort from Blake Griffin.
2. LeBron James continues to nerf the entire 2013 Slam Dunk Contest by going between his legs in practice.
3. Kenneth Faried goes up Dwight Howard’s helpless back to catch an alley-oop.
4. A ridiculous man’s fire dunk, as seen yesterday on With Leather
5. Eddie the sea otter throws it down, as seen in Danger’s post from last Wednesday

Please view, and vote in the poll.

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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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During Saturday’s game in Reading, R-Phils outfielder Jiwan James scaled the wall to rob Bowie Baysox slugger Jonathan Schoop of a home run. The crazy thing about it is that he doesn’t catch it with his glove … he loses his glove completely and comes down with the ball in his bare hand. It’s one of the best (and most serendipitous) catches you’ll ever see, topping SportsCenter’s top plays and turning a double-A minor leaguer into an online sensation.

The only problem is that with the modifier “online” comes skeptics, and YouTube refuses to believe he caught the ball.

Theory 1: He trapped it.

ball definitely hits the wall…if you constantly hit pause and play at Around the 7 second mark of the video, you can see the ball go past his glove, and hit the wall at around the 8 second mark…hard to see, but its there (user chosen1soulja)

Looks like it falls into his chest and he either traps it against the wall and grabs it on the way down or he catches it off of his chest on the way down for the grab. (user pjfan14)

Theory 2: The ball he caught was a fake.

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Someone sent me the above image the other day – original version here – and I have no idea what game it’s from or when it was taken, but it’s fantastic. I Tweeted it and we had some fun with it and then I forgot about it, because have you seen that Kate Upton video yet, but last night, as I was scavenging the Internet for random things to photoshop, I realized this photo is everywhere. And since it’s on Imgur, I’ll just assume that it started out on Reddit. Usually a safe assumption.

People have been endlessly debating the best aspects of this photo and, while I can’t pick one myself, I figured we might as well try to add some good ol’ With Leatherian intelligence to this debate. Above, I’ve circled the finer aspects of this photo as if it’s some training graphic for how not to behave at a baseball game, and after the jump I’ve broken each number down a little further.

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Normally this would be the place I’d hype our Best And Worst Of WWE Smackdown Live-Blog, but tonight is the big UFC 141 event live on pay-per-view from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we’re keeping it real. The live-blog will return starting next week, but for now I want to know where you’re watching the fights, what you think’s gonna happen, what you think WHILE it’s happening and what you thought when it was done.

So, open discussion thread. I’m not the most schooled-in-MMA blogger out there, so let me know what to expect, and what I should be excited for beyond a geometric shape full of blood and the possibility of an F5. Let me hear you, jerks! If this goes well (and gets more than the usual four comments* in comparison to WWE’s 100+) we’ll keep it going, and I’ll make an effort to cover more things that are actually sports.

The full results and weigh-in video are below. :

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Hot off of David Stern’s remarks about the Orlando Magic’s poor play and his expectations of silence, Stan Van Gundy is being dragged a little further through the proverbial mud today, as a new Sports Illustrated poll of 138 NBA players declares him far and away the most annoying coach in the NBA. Nearly 90 of the players admitted that when they are playing the Magic, StanVan drives them crazier than any other coach in the league. Phil Jackson and Scott Skiles tied for second with 7%.

When asked for comment, David Stern declined and continued thanking the 90 players that stopped by his office to collect money that he owed them for “something totally different”.

Additional fun notes from SI’s survey include:

Two coaches who left their teams midseason received votes: Larry Brown of the Bobcats (2%) and Jerry Sloan of the Jazz (1%)…. Sloan, Brown and Jackson all are among the top six alltime in NBA coaching wins…. Two non–head coaches, Celtics assistant Lawrence Frank and Bobcats majority owner Michael Jordan, received one vote apiece…. The Pistons’ John Kuester is tied for the lead among NBA coaches with eight technicals but received no votes; Van Gundy’s seven techs tie him for third.

Now I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this before, but I’m a bit of a Magic fan, and I just want to take this opportunity to slam my fists against the table and yell to the world in a fiery rage… I agree. Seriously, Stan annoys the hell out of me. On and off the court. I wish SI surveyed the entire league so the number could be higher.