screengrab via SBN

After a brief hiatus to deal with objective weekly winners like DeAndre Jordan’s dunk on Brandon Knight, LeBron’s ridiculous circus posterization of Jason Terry and Doug Anderson’s destruction of the space-time continuum, the Wednesday Dunk Battle is back!

If this is your first Dunk Battle, here are the rules: You have to watch the following dunks and vote on which one is the best, because science doesn’t do itself. There’s a handy poll at the bottom, so take your time and go through each clip frame by frame, vote, then drop down into the comments section to let us know who you voted for.

This week’s dunks:

1. Russell Westbrook elevates and dunks on the Utah Jazz
2. LeBron James alley-oops the ball to himself off the backboard and dunks, because LeBron James
3. Blake Griffin goes for a finger roll, calls an audible, dunks his finger roll
4. Terrence Ross’ 360 180 degree jam

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At 23-34, the Toronto Raptors aren’t having a great season, by any means, but they’re still only 4.5 games out of the 8th playoff spot in the mostly terrible NBA Eastern Conference. Despite the lingering possibility of playoff hopes, Raptors fans shouldn’t get too excited about basketball in late April, so they should just be happy that Rachel McAdams was on hand to watch the Raptors lose to the 18-37 Washington Wizards last night.

I don’t mean to be a dick to Toronto fans, though, but I think the NBA should imply new rules about the attractiveness of female celebrities at courtside. Like, the Raptors aren’t the worst team in the NBA, but they don’t deserve McAdams. Maybe Avril Lavigne.

Also, Selena Gomez can’t sit courtside for Lakers games until they’re at least in a playoff spot. Until then, the Lakers can only have Amanda Bynes. And Kirstie Alley will sit next to me at Magic games. I think I’m on to something here.

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I’ve never been good at recognizing basketball penalties. I know the rules of the game, but I’m almost always wrong. LeBron James gets a pass at half court, tucks the ball under his arm and f**king Frankenstein walks 40 feet into a dunk and my brain goes HEY WAIT A SECOND, but nope, the person next to me helpfully explains that they “get two steps!” I’m never right. Also, LeBron James has never carried or traveled.

Amir Johnson has made me feel a little better about my eye-to-brain malfunctions with probably the worst violation I’ve ever seen a professional player get away with. It’s not even debatable. He dribbles the ball, stops, then just dribbles again and takes his shot. You can’t even get mad at it. Everyone who saw it just stood around laughing afterward, because holy shit there were three referees watching him do it.

Video vindication of my terrible basketball-watching abilities is after the jump.

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Canada (or #canada, if you’re on the Internet) has had it rough lately. The NHL lockout is nowhere in sight. The NHLPA is considering decertification. Canada needs hockey. They can’t play anything else. Look at Toronto’s mayor, he can’t take a snap without tripping and falling flat on his face. Now he’s getting kicked out of office. See how that works?

Canada’s next best option is to put all of their apples into the Toronto Raptors’ basket. They can find succor in the loving tweets of Raptors star player Amir Johnson, who did his best to appease the country’s sports-starved masses by doing the most Canadian thing ever:

The only way that could’ve been more Canadian is if he’d played late night hoops with Bonhomme. And by the way, THIS is how sad the hockey situation is. We’re doing posts about Amir Johnson Instagram updates instead of Paulina Gretzky. She’s off somewhere aimlessly taking pictures of dogs.

Anyway, because no Justin Bieber-related post can be complete without somebody who likes Justin Bieber getting SUPER PISSED about anyone else liking Justin Bieber, here’s the harmless celebrity photo’s immediate Instagram response:

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Once upon a time, the more gullible of our ilk could watch television and believe LeBron James sinking full court shots, or Michael Vick having the power to throw a football out of a stadium. Those days are long gone, and all we’re left with is Toronto Raptors and Spanish national team star José Calderón sitting in front of a Kia, moving his arms as terrible-looking CGI basketballs make jokes.

It’s funny that YouTube commenters are already declaring FAKE~! on the clip, which is sorta like screaming FAKE in a movie theater when Catwoman shoots Bane with a motorcycle rocket. These Powerade-esque commercials are supposed to be a demonstration of something impossibly awesome, not of a bored guy on the set of a car commercial missing in shapes. They should’ve just showed some highlights, then drove a car onto the court with a big ALSO HERE IS A KIA across the screen. Anything would’ve been better than those yakkity-sax basketballs.

[h/t Ball Don't Lie]

Last Friday, the not-surprisingly-terrible New Jersey Nets earned their second win of the season with a 97-85 tickle fight against the slightly-less-terrible Toronto Raptors. But the scoreboard be damned, because the Raptors fans above earned the biggest victory of all as they reportedly heckled Nets forward and ex-Kardashian enabler Kris Humphries throughout the entire game with their giant cutout signs of E!’s First Family. Damn that classic Canadian wit.

The rest of the weekend and early season action has continued as expected, with the biggest surprise thus far being the 7-2 Philadelphia 76ers and their 6-game winning streak. It looks like all the City of Brotherly Love needed was a little Will Smith injection of jiggyness and some of the ugliest mascot options in sports history. Good for the 76ers and the other little engines that could, as they will inevitably be decimated by the Miami Heat.

Before we get started, though, let’s take a look at the ballsiest basketball bros you’ll see upgrade their seats this season…

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