It's our first THIS WEEK IN GIFs of the baseball season, and the Astros have wasted no time in building their astoundingly crappy GIF legacy. Vote, and help us decide the best of the week.
PAUL GEORGE
Three things:
1. At this moment, the Pacers trailed by a point with about three minutes left in the game. Please note that he chucks this up with 22 seconds left on the shot clock, and from 35 feet away. He's closer to half-court than he is to the arc.
2. This GIF went from great to greater once I noticed the individual in the pink shirt just to the left of the backboard, shuckin' and jivin' independent of on-court proceedings.
3. This GIF narrowly missed being even greater. The display behind George lights up with "Bankers Life" as he freezes to admire his shot. Had he used the glass, the officials would have had to call the NBA's ever "swag-out," and the game would have ended.
LEBRON JAMES
(Via @cjzero)
Occasionally, LeBron throws a bone to all the joyless lumps who hate him for invalid reasons, and whose feelings I do not respect. All you need to know about this set of people is that they invented the derisive nickname "Bron-Bron" just for him. We know it's supposed to be derisive, because the only people who call him that are the people who don't like him. I guess it's a clumsy stab at infantilizing his name or something.
"Bron-Bron." You know they were just a Bawls or two away from settling on "Mr. Sucky Man."
JAMES YOUNG
Kentucky lost the championship game, of course, but DANG. As Mike Rutherford tweeted, it looked like he was gonna finish three feet short of the rim.
BLAKE GRIFFIN
If you don't prune a peach tree, it's gonna grow everywhere. If you don't guard Blake Griffin, he's gonna fill up the paint with an unnatural basketball mutation like this one. He's fake-passing into a dunk, and he's also drawing a picture frame in the air with the basketball.
And thanks to those awesome uniforms, it looks like he's doing it all in his dang jammies. I feel that when the Clips wear those, they should also have to wear the onesie pants with the little crinkly pads on the bottoms of the feet. I feel this very, very strongly. With a running start and a properly-waxed court, they could probably foot-ski all the way down the floor.
UNDERTAKER FAN
Even though the GIF, being a GIF is silent, it doesn't do the silence of the moment justice. The video somehow seems even quieter. 'Taker's endless streak finally ended, and only a handful of people had prior knowledge that it would happen, and man, the room just went dead. The announcers didn't speak, and the PA system didn't make any noise. The good news is that since Pro Wrestling Is Fake, none of the folks in attendance felt true despair, because they were all holograms.
DAMN IT, ASTROS, PART 8
I'm always really excited whenever I get to add another DAMN IT, ASTROS GIF to the legacy. A simple infield pop-up miscommunication alone would not be enough to warrant inclusion to DAMN IT, ASTROS canon. They had to somehow give up a run to push it over the top.
Keep in mind that Ichiro was probably standing flat-footed on third base; at the very most, he was leading toward home by a step or two. The Astros have three jerks standing closer to home plate than Ichiro is, and none of them bother to cover home. This did not show up as an error in the play-by-play.
Single to C (Pop Fly to Front of Home)
SINGLE TO C (POP FLY IN FRONT OF HOME)
SINGLE TO C (POP FLY IN FRONT OF HOME)
Nobody buy or rebuild the Houston Astros, please. It would be like eradicating smallpox. We might need them to cure baseball one day.
DAMN IT, ASTROS FAN
We're one TWIG-week into the baseball season, and we already have two landmark shitty Astros GIFs. My favorite is the timid dude just to her left. Finally, someone in an Astros GIF who seems ashamed of what's going on.
VOTE!