Happy Wednesday, y'all, and welcome once again to a very special Wednesday edition of THIS WEEK IN GIFs! We would have run this last Friday, but I was eaten by a giant wolf.
We have a decidedly strange crop of GIFs to present. To boot, the beloved techfolk at SB Nation have a special treat for you. They've tooled around with the electricity, and as a result, GIFs are now marked with a big "GIF" in the middle, and they won't play until you hover over them. Hopefully, this should result in less of a load on y'alls' browsers, which is important since every episode of TWIG tends to feature seven or eight of these jerks.
As usual, I have to caution you: it's dangerous for you to view sports GIFs without first watching a video in which we tell you how to feel about them. So please watch as Dan, Will and myself plead the cases of our favorite jokes. I made a fart noise.
Voting will remain open until tonight at 11 p.m. Enjoy!
STEVE OTT
(Via USA TODAY)
Look, everyone! An athlete in a THIS WEEK IN GIFs GIF is doing something funny on purpose! Does this even count as a GIF? Like, obviously, that's the file extension, but over the last couple years I've come to regard the GIF as a spiritual entity rather than a thing that could be reduced to a simple filetype.
I'll allow it. God, I'm still going to be THIS WEEK IN GIFs like 30 years from now and I'll be a 60-year-old man with a library of absurd GIF feelings. That's going to be awful.
JUSTIN VERLANDER
The smile at the end is what really seals it for me. I don't think he's ever seen a bobblehead before. Please, nobody tell him that real bobbleheads should be twice that size and that he's holding a chintzy ballpark-giveaway knockoff. I don't think his little heart would be able to take it.
KELLY SHOPPACH
(Via House of the Bluebird)
Hey you guys. Hey. Hey you guys. Here's Kelly Shoppach throwing the ball right at home plate. Hey you guys. Hey. Let's start a cable channel channel and make it play this GIF all day. Hey. Hey guys. Let's call it the "Shoppach Home Network." Heh. Well, cool. Bye. (rollerblades into ocean)
ZACH RANDOLPH
(Via Bill Hanstock's Week in Worst)
You know, Spencer has elected to adopt these Grizzlies as his NBA team during the playoffs, so I'm going to have him explain Zachary Randolph to you.
He is an NBA All-Star who appears to have never picked up a weight in his life, and can barely clear a doorstep with his vertical leap. To watch Randolph play in the low post is to watch a traffic barrier with arms attempt to play the game of basketball; to watch him play against Blake Griffin is to consider that there may be different gravity settings in the NBA, and that Randolph's is turned all the way up while Griffin's has been turned off completely.
NATE ROBINSON
(Via Bill Hanstock's Week in Worst)
I passed on this as my choice for GIF of the week, but just barely. Nate's effort here is a failure, obviously, but I don't see it that way. He chucks the ball off the dude's knees to avoid a backcourt violation, right? That's supreme presence of mind, and it gives him about as good a look as one could expect for a buzzer-beating 49-footer.
It's Nate Robinson's very own Gordon Hayward moment. He didn't miss it by a ton; had he hit it, it would have been one of the very coolest halfcourt shots ever. (If you're interested in further reading, I examined the best halfcourt shots of all time a couple months ago.)
BENO UDRIH
(Via Seth Rosenthal)
Someday, I'd like to assemble a compendium of the least impressive drives to the net in NBA history. This would surely be included. In this moment, Beno Udrih is Chris Paul if Chris Paul had zero court vision, awareness, or confidence. That's his real problem here: he didn't believe in himself.
So he chucks it off Jeff Green's calf like he's trying to save the ball from going out of bounds ... which, again, clues us in on how firm a grasp he has of where the hell he even is. Don't sleep on Green, though. No. 8 has his arms up, defending a shot, with his back to the ball. No idea, y'all.
JEAN MACHI
Not to be an Oversharing Oliver, but I already addressed this moment in last week's set of SB Nation baseball cards. I think this is the closest we'll ever come to seeing a fart in a GIF. Farts and GIFs. The singularity.
VOTE!