Friday - YouTube Clip of the Week

This incredibly repetitive clip looks at the battle between Jason Richardson and Desmond Mason from the 2002 Dunk Contest (Sound) with some Gerald Wallace thrown in for reasons that are still unclear. Personally I approach dunk contests the same way my college offensive line coach approached football:

"Coach, you gonna watch the XFL tonight?" - Player

"Oh yeah, you could put a bunch of blind midgets out there, and if they were playing football, I’d watch." – Coach

However, if dunk contests are not your thing skip to the 3:52 mark where Richardson throws down a pretty ridiculous reverse. Shortly after Richardson celebrates with then teammate Gilbert Arenas. Right around the 4:03 mark Arenas does an interesting, albeit brief dance. Cracks me up. And what about the Richadson/Arenas dynamic? Was Richardson at least somewhat relieved to see the shot happy Arenas leave town? Or was it more like when Orlando traded Steve Francis’ buddy Cuttino Mobley? Keep in mind that from a shots perspective any gains Richardson made were nullified with the arrival of Baron Davis. Although I’m guessing that Richardson doesn’t have to worry about Davis stealing his uniform before games. Though I think we all can agree that Arenas is a marketing genius.

“You know how I always throw my jersey into the stands after a game? In Washington, they just go crazy for it. So in this commercial, that's what I'm gonna do with my shoes. I've just hit a game winner, and I throw these shoes. Everyone starts to react, and you see everything in slow motion. Everyone's pushing, shoving, doing whatever it takes to try to get to these shoes. People from the 400 level, they're jumping off the ledge, they're missing the pile, hitting nothing but chairs, and you can just see in people's faces like, Ooooh, that hurt. While all this stuff's going on, one of the shoes pops out of the crowd, and a little girl gets it and she takes off. A couple of people see she has it, and they start chasing her, and she's looking back running—and then she gets clotheslined by a kid in a wheelchair. So he picks the shoe up and says—he's gonna have the only line in there—"They said I couldn't get it. Heh. Impossible is nothing." And then he rolls off.” – Gilbert Arenas shoe commercial idea.

Special thanks to Deadspin, True Hoop and of course Esquire for the epic Gilbert Arenas profile.