The Animated GIFs Of Winter, Numbers 10 Through 6

10. The 2010-11 Bulls, in GIF form

(Click image to view. Via Ryan Corazza)

It’s fun to see a basketball coach (in this case, Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau) react to a big win at the end of a game (in this case, the Bulls’ win over the Heat), because coaches spend the games themselves reacting unfavorably to everything. If their point guard hits a go-ahead three in the fourth quarter, he doesn’t pause for a moment, sweeping it under the rug as deftly as a fourth-grader who opens his lunch box to find that his mother has written an “I love you” note on his napkin.

To me, the suppression of joy would be the most difficult part of being a basketball coach. That’s only one reason reason I’d be a terrible coach, though. I’d probably just pace up and down the court all game while clapping my hands and yelling “FUNDAMENTALS” and “EXECUTE” over and over. I’d be fired before the end of the road trip, but you know the announcers would eat that s*** right up.

9. Goalie Fight: a one-act play

(Via Mocksession)

RICK DIPIETRO. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT
BRENT JOHNSON. FIIIIIIIIGHT
REFEREE. Hey. Hey, guys.
JOHNSON. Huh?
REFEREE. Not allowed.
DIPIETRO. Why not?
REFEREE. You... you’re goalies.
JOHNSON. Oh, word.
DIPIETRO. He’s halfway through his punch. Should he just finish it real quick, or?
REFEREE. Nah.
JOHNSON. Cool. Sorry about that, we don’t really know how fights work.
DIPIETRO. Yeah. We see fights happen a lot, so we figured we’d try it for once.
JOHNSON. So, okay, we’re at the end of the fight. Do we get fortune cookies?
REFEREE. No, those don’t have anything to do with fights. I believe you’re thinking of the end of a meal at a Chinese or Vietnamese restaurant.
DIPIETRO. So now does Green Day sing that “all by myself” song?
REFEREE. Nope. End of “Dookie.”
JOHNSON. So now we spend like ten minutes yanking the starter cord?
REFEREE. (shakes head) That’s the end of the life span of a consumer-grade lawnmower.
DIPIETRO. So I guess this is the part where we bang on the door and yell at Wilma to let us back in?
REFEREE. No. Do you guys know what a fight even is?
JOHNSON. Wait, okay, this is when we realize Incubus isn’t a good band.
REFEREE. Nope, end of your childhood.
DIPIETRO. Okay, so now there’s just a blue screen with copyright information and funky music with chimes and stuff.
REFEREE. No, you’re thinking of the end of a 1980s episode of Sesame Street.
JOHNSON. Wait, I thought the Sesame Street theme song played during the closing credits.
REFEREE. Yeah, but then after that there was a second series of closing credits.
JOHNSON. TOTALLY forgot about that! This is such a sick jam.
DIPIETRO. Okay, so this is when Brent Johnson says, “whoa, that is tripping me out.”
REFEREE. No. That’s the end of an imagined conversation based on an animated GIF.
JOHNSON. Whoa, that is tripping me out.

8. Blake Griffin makes kid even happier than he makes the rest of us

Yes, I know. There’s a bit of manipulation here, and one of my rules is that I can’t include manipulated GIFs. I’m breaking that rule here, and I hope you understand.

Note that the kid’s shirt says, “CLEVELAND.” It isn’t a team shirt or anything, it’s just a generic “CLEVELAND” shirt. This strongly suggests two possibilities:

1) He is visiting Cleveland on vacation, and actually thinks Cleveland is great enough of a city to warrant a T-shirt purchase.

2) He lives in Cleveland and he thinks it’s cool to wear a shirt bearing the name of the city that he lives in and is currently in.

If either of these is true, then they, in turn, strongly suggest that this moment is by far the coolest thing that has ever happened in his life, and perhaps the only cool thing that has happened in life. This might be the most genuinely touching GIF I have ever seen.

7. HEY, SANTIAGO MARTIN SILVA OF VELEZ SARSFIELD, GUESS WHAT
SOMEONE JUST SCORED A GOAL AND THERE IS A MOUSE CRAWLING AROUND IN YOUR SHORTS AND YOU LEFT THE STOVE ON BEFORE YOU LEFT THE HOUSE THIS MORNING AND IT’S SIMULTANEOUSLY CHRISTMAS AND YOUR BIRTHDAY AND AN ASTRONAUT JUST FOUND A CURE FOR CANCER BUT HIS SPACECRAFT IS LOSING FUEL AND THEY JUST ANNOUNCED A SIXTH SEASON OF THE WIRE AND A COMET IS HEADED FOR EARTH AND I LIKE YOUR SHIRT

I KNOW, RIGHT

6. REX SMASH

(Click image to view. Via Mocksession)

“Loud man with foot fetish coaches large-market team battling sexual harassment accusations” is, generally speaking, not a formula that win over the rest of the country. But we talked about them a lot without wishing they were all dead, which is about as close as NFL fans come to love. I think that if the Jets won the Super Bowl, we would hate them as much as we hate the Patriots, and so this moment had to happen.

It isn’t rare to see a head coach throw a tantrum on the sideline, but the tantrum’s always directional. Every other coach is mad at his player for blowing coverage, or at the officials for missing a holding call, or at his offensive coordinator for sending his running back to certain death. Watching this moment, I get the sense that Rex is not mad at anything. He is simply mad.

Just as coaches are unnaturally unhappy during games, they are usually unnaturally stoic after a loss. Rex broke this rule, too. We looked to Rex Ryan last season to behave as no other coach behaved, and at every turn, he delivered.

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Page 4: 15-11 | Page 5: 10-6 | Page 6: 5-1
Best Animated GIFs of 2010