Welcome once again, everyone, to THIS WEEK IN GIFs! We have an exceptional crop of animated sports GIFs for your consumption this week. Programming note: we will be launching GIF TOURNAMENT III in early January, in which our favorite GIFs over the last six months or so will vie for the championship. I am excited.
I conferred with fellow GIF enthusiasts Matt Ufford and Dan Rubenstein. Here are our favorites this week:
CARLOS BOOZER
(Via @cjzero)
If this GIF doesn't make you laugh, you and I are very, very different people. I don't believe in the "we can't be friends" meme because I value the companionship of people who are different from me. I am not merely passively tolerant. I actively celebrate who you are, whether you're similar or dissimilar to me, and I want you to know that I like you and think you're great. You! You, the person who are reading this! Maybe I'm being too forward, but I am overjoyed you're reading, and I don't really give a shit about being polite right now.
CAM NEWTON
(Via @bubbaprog)
I still haven't processed Cam Newton as a Big Dude. I think of him as 5'11" and 180, when in fact he's 6'5'" and 250. I'm not really sure why I have such a wrong perception, but moments like these do not help. In Mario Kart terms, Newton is Bowser and Yoshi at the same time.
BRIAN OKAM
This looks like when you're playing 21, and you have 21 points, and you have to go up to the line one last time and brick it to win the game. Which is treacherous, because if you hit the shot, you go back to 13 (or possibly zero, depending on which part of the country you're playing). But if you brick it and it gets tipped, you face the same fate.
That's one of the things that makes 21 my favorite pick-up game: it doesn't necessarily reward "being good at basketball." For one, you can just play garbage man all day by letting some other donkey man up and just camping under the net for the rebound. And for another, in order to seal your victory, you have to intentionally miss the shot. Sometimes your attempt to do so will look like Mr. Okam's attempt we see here.
Yeah, but he's actually trying to make the shot, though. It's like he's shooting with a wiffle basketball.
MANNY PACQUIAO
To casual boxing not-really-fans like myself, Manny Pacquiao is more of a celebrity than anything. To boot, he's a good-guy celebrity -- a thoroughly likable person who we perceive as we perceive, I don't know, John Oliver or Samantha Bee. Just a nice guy doin' nice things. Since he only fights twice a year, and since we'd have to reach into our pockets to even see him fight, that's mostly all he is to us.
I think that's what really gets me about this: Oh God, he's knocked out! Oh no, how did that happen? Oh, right, he punches people and gets punched for his job.
ANTONIO BROWN
If Antonio Brown were a lineman, his instinct would be to fall on the ball and comfort it in its dying moments. As a skill-position player, though, he completely lacks such instincts. A 100 percent chance of losing two points is, of course, better than a 96 percent chance of losing seven points, but I can't really blame Mr. Brown for not processing that within the four seconds he was allotted.
I've been waiting since approximately 1989 for the NFL to grow corn mazes in the end zones and frankly I do not understand what the holdup is.
DAMN IT, CARDINALS
This happened during the 58-0 Seahawking of the Arizona Cardinals last Sunday. It was the third-worst loss since the AFL-NFL merger, and the Cardinals produced so many moments like this (eight turnovers!) that it was tough to settle on one. Usually, if a team is getting absolutely ruined, it'll eventually begin to play conservatively, emphasize ball protection, et cetera, so as to avoid total humiliation.
Instead, they played like your little brother played Cruisin' USA at the arcade. You crossed the finish line two minutes ago, but he's still standing on the gas pedal, tires screeching as his car grinds flush against the a poorly-rendered canyon wall. "Turn, dude! TURN!" Eh, he ain't listening. He's in his own little world right now.
RAJON RONDO
This shot is more understandable than Mr. Okam's above, because he's actually being defended. But it's funnier, because Rondo is world-famous for having an awful mid-range shooting game, and because this was a game-winning attempt.
ALDON SMITH
A special nomination from fellow GIF enthusiast Dan Rubenstein! Here's Aldon Smith, the 49ers' new franchise leader in single-season sacks, making a knock-knock joke of the Dolphins' offensive line. Speaking of Dan: y'all checked out Dan On Fire yet? Because it was perhaps the funniest thing on SB Nation this week.
COURTNEY KIRKLAND/KRIS HUMPHRIES
(Via Jordan Sargent)
DON'T THROW THE BALL AT THAT PIECE OF GLASS YOU COULD HAVE BROKEN IT WHAT ARE YOU THINKING
VOTE!