Despite what a bunch of pompous crybabies like myself predicted during the NBA lockout, a little forced time off eventually did nothing to hurt the sanctity of the league and the statuses and images of its stars. That has been clearly evident from the strong ratings, and it has been aided by unexpected blessings like Jeremy Lin popping up in the league’s favorite market. And as Sunday’s All-Star Game has come and gone, TNT had a ratings bonanza and David Stern cackled atop his throne of angel skulls.
Now we can go back to wondering what’s going to happen to Dwight Howard and Deron Williams. Will they end up together in New Jersey/Brooklyn? Dallas? Orlando? Turkey? A Whole Foods in Connecticut? A lube-soaked spooning embrace? Yes to all is my prediction, because that’s the easy choice and we have more important matters confronting us, like making fun of Chris Brown.
Because that’s the most important thing we can do today.
I wish more people cared about the NBA Developmental League. To the NBA fan, the D-League is an afterthought. To Austin sports fans, our D-League team (the Austin Toros) are a thing you suddenly realize exists when you’re complaining about how we lost our soccer team to Orlando. Personally, I love the Toros. They play okay basketball! Their mascot is a hip-hop dancing camouflage bull!
Maybe what the D-League needs to help its image are more videos like this one, featuring highlights of the annual NBADL slam dunk contest. LD Williams, Chris Roberts, Zach Andrews and Courtney Eldenson put on a fun, awesome show that managed to obliterate the NBA’s Jumping Over Guys Repeatedly boredom contest and gave us the best Grandmama moment since she helped Eddie Winslow win a basketball game 20 years ago.
And yeah, this contest features someone getting jumped over, too (I kept hoping someone would try to dunk over a 1990 Toyota Corolla), but LD Williams’ dunk at the 0:50 mark single-handedly f**ks up the NBA’s Christmas. Let’s get behind these guys, nerds.
The 10 Things We Learned From The 2012 NBA All-Star Game - 1 Thing We Learned From The Slam Dunk Contest: the only dunk that exists is “jumping over things”. [Smoking Section]
Liverpool Fan Pokes Himself In The Eye, Continues Cheering - Been there, done that. I’ve also cheered through accidentally getting punched in the balls, but that might just’ve been Cleveland. [High Definite]
Vick Ballard Runs, He Slides … - Now we need footage of Andrew Luck playing ‘Rattle Me Bones’. Alternate joke: RG3 is great at ‘Shark Attack’. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]
20 Hilarious/Useful “Walking Dead” GIFs - I was hoping this’d be nothing but gifs of people talking. pGamma Squad]
The Best Of Danny DeVito’s #Frank Reynolds - I’ll never say “trash” the same way again. [UPROXX]
Photos from the ‘The Adventures of Pete and Pete’ Reunion - Toby Huss is one of the 10 people in the world I’d most like to meet. Also, holy sh*t this is basically the greatest thing. [Warming Glow]
Must Watch: Jean Dujardin’s French surfer rap - Forget Jean Dujardin, let’s find video of everything Bérénice Bejo has ever done. And Uggie, minus all the Frasier. [Film Drunk]
So This Happened: Bryan Cranston Wore Breaking Bad Chuck Taylors To An Awards Show -Stay off of my turf in those shoes.. [UPROXX]
With any luck, Jim Rash’s Oscar win will be great news for Community - And with any luck, Alison Brie will take over for Amanda Seyfried and win an Oscar for being constantly nude as Linda Lovelace. Perfect world, blah blah. [FARK]
10 Awesome Animals Walking On Two Legs - So what? I walk on two legs all the time. [The FW]
The Best Interview About a Sex Shop Fire You’ll Ever See - I just picture Pee-wee Herman running out of the store with a bunch of dildos in his hands and collapsing. [Brobible]
Eight Disturbing Music Videos You May Have Missed - I’m pretty unhappy to live in a world where people haven’t seen Aphex Twin videos. That’s sorta my WHATTA YA MEAN YA NEVER HEARD’A MAYPO moment. [Unreality]
This year’s NBA All-Star Slam Dunk Contest has very few people excited. With a lineup of Derrick Williams, Paul George, Chase Budinger and Iman Shumpert, who will provide the most excitement based solely on his lob partner and New York Knicks teammate, Jeremy Lin, this contest will rely heavily on creativity and very little on star power.
*dead cat crashes through window with a note attached*
According to our With Leather day-old news service, Shumpert has backed out of the dunk contest and will be replaced by Utah Jazz forward Jeremy Evans, which means that our Linebriation will only come from the Rising Stars challenge on Friday. So that leaves many people asking the NBA and its bevvy of stars: What the F, dudes?
Where the hell is the glory and ego of yesteryear, when the stars would line up to throw down a few dandy dunkaroos while their crews hopped around like morons? I mean, Dwight Howard should have been contractually obligated to win his title back from Blake Griffin this year, but neither of them want to get their hands dirty.
Thankfully, there’s a voice of reason out there that points the finger at one of the NBA’s biggest dunk contest no-shows of the last 8 years: LeBron James. And that voice of reason is a young kid who puts every NBA superstar diva in his place.
Chances are if you even squinted at a Twitter feed yesterday, you saw a million or so people bitching about this year’s NBA All-Star Game slam dunk contest lineup, and they were all justified in doing so. Not only will the contest not feature the defending champion, Blake Griffin, but last year’s actual champion runner-up, JaVale McGee is also sitting this one out. Not because he didn’t want to, mind you, but because he wasn’t invited.
So who got the call? Chase Budinger, Paul George, Iman Shumpert and Derrick Williams, or as I like to call them: Who, What, Why and How? No real disrespect intended to those guys, but as the Washington Post pointed out after the league’s announcement yesterday, they’ve combined for 55 dunks on the season. Griffin and McGee, the league’s Top 2 dunkers, have nearly 3 times that amount between the two of them. In fact, the four guys selected aren’t even among the Top 40 dunkers in the entire NBA.
To make matters even worse, the contest has now been cut down to just one round and there will no longer be celebrity judges. Instead, the fans are in charge of the voting responsibility, which is bad news for Budinger, George and Williams, because none of them have the luxury of being Jeremy Lin’s teammate like Shumpert, who will be fed lobs by the New York Knicks’ new star. It’s not even fair, but even worse – it’s not even fun.
Meme Watch: ‘What People Think I Do Versus What I Really Do’ Reminds Us That All Jobs Kinda Suck - What Jeremy Lin thinks I do. What Kate Upton thinks I do. What I actually do! All just black squares. [UPROXX]
Chris Brown Has A New Pickup Line Sure To Make All The Ladies Melt - I bet George Jones is really happy he didn’t beat his girlfriend when the Internet around. [UPROXX]
7 Potential First-Time Hosts that Could Enliven the Stagnant ‘Saturday Night Live’ - I think they could benefit from letting lesser known, high quality writer/comedians host the show instead of someone with a movie coming out, that way a little effort would happen. [Warming Glow]
Channing Tatum Wants Fans To Pick His Movies - Okay. A Tree Of Life reboot, three consecutive movies where he’s an army guy “just tryin’ to get home to his wife and daughter”, then permanent retirement. [Film Drunk]
Our 20 Favorite Pieces From Gallery 1988′s Video Games Art Show - I would pay hard-earned cash money to have that Excitebike piece hanging in my house. [Gamma Squad]
NBA Announces All-Star 2012 Dunk Contest Participants - The most revolutionary change to the dunk contest needs to be “you get one chance to dunk this, so try not to f**k it up”. [Smoking Section]
Hall of Fame Oddsmakers 2012: “Macho Man” Randy Savage - Tom Holzerman and I debate whether or not the Macho Man will get into WWE’s Hall Of Fame. Like everything WWE related, who the hell knows? [The Wrestling Blog]
13 Things About Your Childhood You Never Realized That Will Blow Your Mind - I don’t want to live in a world where people don’t know Shredder and Uncle Phil are the same person. [Buzzfeed]
This Dog Looks A Lot Like A Penis - your entire website looks like a penis [HuffPost Comedy]
This the World’s Most Expensive Starbucks Drink? - I was with this guy until he busted out a Chuck Norris joke. Regardless, as a blogger, sixteen espresso shots sounds normal and awesome. [The FW]
Which Cast Aged The Best? My Money’s On Those Kids From Bayside - Well it certainly wasn’t the cast of ‘Seaquest DSV’, I’ll give them that. [Pajiba]
History of Nintendo’s Controllers GIF - Is it weird that I wish Nintendo was still making Gamecube games? I want another Double Dash game using the same engine with like 400 more tracks :( [Unreality]
Tommy Chong Says Whitney Houston Should Have Stuck to Ganja - Tommy Chong should’ve stuck to not talking about Whitney Houston. [Brobible]
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