Welcome to the final segment of our NBA Christmas list. As in the previous segments (which you should obviously check out), this is one piece of our sneak peak at the NBA’s master Christmas list. Something I just noticed while writing this: the NBA gets less fun in alphabetical order.

Portland Trailblazers: A competent medical/training staff (I wish I could have started this column out with a joke).

Sacramento Kings: New owners.

And players.

And arena name.

San Antonio Spurs: When the Gregg Popovich runs downstairs and opens his presents, he’ll see four snuggies. He won’t have to worry about his star players getting chilly during the cold winter TNT games that they’ll be spending on the bench.

Toronto Raptors: League permission to switch back to their cartoon throwbacks for the rest of the year. They should also see about making the court holograms more extreme. Anything to make this season more interesting.

Utah Jazz: A new name. Something fitting for the culture and wild life of Utah. The Utah Pelicans has a nice ring to it.

Washington Wizards The Kobe treatment in Germany for John Wall’s entire body.

Joey Crawford had himself a little Mario Party this week. Collecting gold coins faster than he hands out technicals.

Charty: Laker Bros

Boosh: I’m thankful for Dwight’s headband.

Angelo: I’m thankful Sheed is back.

Mike: That picture of Brandon Jennings with the topless stripper.

Jeff: NBA Twitter. Watching the games is fun, but following along with Twitter is the best.

Triz: Andrew Bynum’s decision making skills

Erin: I’m most thankful for the veteran leadership of Rasheed Wallace helping the Knicks to an 8-1 start to this season.

SpaceFunMars: Neither my wife nor my work wants to hear this, but I’m thankful I have to work nights for the entire NBA season. I get to see waayyyyy more games than I ever could before. It is only at the expense of spending time with my wife and doing my job well.

Triz: I’m thankful for those Lakers bros

Charty: The new Denver nuggets uniforms

Erin: Bynum’s hair

Mike: DELONTE WEST*

*ed. note: Nobody tell Mike that Delonte isn’t in the league this year

Erin: Byron Scott calling the practice facility chef’s food “off the chain”

Jeff: Kobe Bryant giving less and less fucks as he gets older. He’s been a quote machine this year.

Erin: Pau Gasol’s twitter feed

Boosh: As always, I’m thankful for Varejao being incredible

Mike: All the KFC-sponsored “bucket” features during NBA games.

Charty: More Waiters ball handling given Kyrie’s injury (trying to look on the bright side here…)

Triz: The thought of Gilbert Arenas in China.

Mike: All the puns you can do with Dion Waiters’ last name.

Erin: The Nets kids dance team’s performance to “Hot Cheetos & Takis“

Mike: Sheed!!!!!!!

Boosh: Luke Harangody is making more money than anyone reading this

Erin: Ricky Rubio listening to “Sweet Home Alabama on his way to practice

Mike: Boosh (for spilling coffee on himself at my wedding and giving us that amazing picture… See attached)*

*ed. note: I didn’t attach that picture

Jeff: Andrew Bynum’s hair.

Erin: Kyle Singler

Mike: Dion Waiters.

Boosh: That we’re watching basketball in November instead of Woj’s twitter feed

Erin: Bynum’s hair

Charty:  Bynum’s hair obviously, but also Nick Young’s hair

Erin: The Lopez twins writing comics together

Mike: Weird/random players wearing headbands that shouldn’t be wearing them

Triz: I’m thankful for those Lakers bros

Boosh: That I used up LPBB slots on the Wizards and the 76ers.

Charty: Yeah Aflac

Mike: The Zach Randolph piece on Grantland where we learned he had “I’m in Love with a Stripper” as his intro music right after he got accused of sexually assaulting a stripper

Most of all, I think we’re all grateful for you guys. Our readers are the smartest, best looking, and generally awesome people on the internet. Now go get a little too drunk and argue with your family.

Boosh had a little free time today, so he threw it out to the other blog members that he was taking photoshop requests. Angelo suggested this, so he taught himself how to edit GIFs. Enjoy.  Shouts out to Deadspin for the source GIF for this masterpiece.

I was pretty psyched when we decided to do a bunch of Halloween themed articles here at IGHN. I’m not the biggest Halloween guy (because that’s Angelo). Shit, I don’t think I’ve had a memorable Halloween experience since I left Ohio University (and I don’t remember much about those memorable experiences). However, I do like writing about ridiculous shit that is only tangentially related to the NBA, and I love costumes. Hell, l spent last weekend dressed like Khloe Kardashian and wreaking havoc all over Dayton. I really need to quit drinking.

The first thing that came to mind when we settled on this theme was the idea of providing our friends in the NBA with practical Halloween costumes based on their attributes, history, or general appearance. Here are a few that I think are ideal matches.

Rasheed Wallace: Zombie

His career keeps dying and coming back to life. I also assume that he knows the “Thriller” dance in its entirety.

Greg Oden: Mummy

After he finishes wrapping up his knee, he can just keep going.

Anthony Davis and Eric Gordon: Bert and Ernie

I think the shitty photoshop job I did in MS Paint illustrates this well enough.

Kevin Garnett: Any of Samuel L Jackson’s Movie Roles

People will assume that his constant yelling is just part of the act and not symptoms of voice immodulation syndrome.

Jerry Reinsdorf: A bed sheet ghost

Because he’s too fucking cheap to shell out for a real costume. Or Omer Asik.

Amare Stoudamire: Michael Phelps

Goggles!

The Brooklyn Nets: A Contending Team

They’ve been pretending to be this all summer, why stop now?

 Derek Rose: Drake as Wheel Chair Jimmy

Too soon?

Christian Eyenga: God’s Gift to Women

We were all pretty confident that Skyenga would become a sex symbol as soon as we saw him dunk on Pau Gasol, but after a couple years of seeing him retweet groupies and constantly prowling to find more, we know it as fact.

I think that if these guys followed my advice they would have more candy by the end of the night than anyone. Well, Sheed would anyway because he’s rich and probably has an entire room of his house made out of gummy bears. Be sure to look out for Spacefunmars’ companion piece to this tomorrow.

Here at I GO HARD NOW we are very concerned about the future of basketball fandom. The NBA is trending towards becoming more and more popular among youth (probably because all of the little fuckers are ADD and sell their Adderall. I know that’s why I love the fast pace.), and now that we have a little bundle of blog joy this issue is hitting closer to home. Spacefunmars has already explained how to make sure that your child roots for the right team, and in this article I want to explore who your kids will end up rooting for if you just assume they’ll make the right decision.

If your favorite team doesn’t have the flashiest uniforms, you really need to make sure to get to start working on them as soon as possible. Kids will almost always make rooting decisions based on who has the gaudiest uniforms and the most ferocious mascot. This is important: don’t wait to start this training until they start to show an interest in sports. Most kids generally start making fan-hood decisions before they even start watching games, especially if their friends’ parents have been diligent in their application of the IGHN system. Be proactive, or your kid will probably start rooting for one of these teams (unless one of these teams is your favorite, in which case you probably still want to make sure they follow the right one).

Toronto Raptors

Kids love cartoons, and evidently so do the owners of the raptors. This shitty cartoon raptor is enough to catch the interest of your child. Do you really want to have a conversation with your kid about why Charles Oakley asked if those uniforms come with cum stains on them?

Phoenix Suns

If you asked a kid what colors they want to paint their room, they would probably choose something just as ugly as the combination of orange, yellow, and purple. For the record, when I was a kid they had paint swathes based on NBA team colors and I chose the Charlotte Hornets. I am grateful to this day that my parents did the right thing and shut that shit down.

Washington Wizards

Two words: Harry Potter. This is probably your biggest threat until the Anaheim Vampires are instituted.

Orlando Magic

See Wizards, Washington

Memphis Grizzlies

Little boys love scary animals, and the grizzly is definitely the most badass representation of one in the NBA. I would probably have picked this team because bears are fucking awesome.

Houston Rockets

Do kids still like space related shit? Probably.

Dallas Mavericks

Too many little girls go through a pony phase for Dallas to be ignored.

So there you have it. Those are the biggest threats to your child rooting for the wrong team. There could probably be a case made for a few more teams, but I think on a basic level of kids’ interests this pretty much covers it.

I am far from an artist. I Go Hard Now has plenty of people skilled at drawing, and I am not one of them. However, when I was presented with the idea that we should all draw sketches of Rondo, how could I resist? So here it is, my childish rendition of what Rondo would look like if his feline skills were adapted literally.

Shit, I forgot his tail.

“Option B was LeBron. Option C was LeBron. Option D was Big Game James. And that was Option D that you saw.” –Mo Williams 5/22/09, after Lebron james hit the game winning three to tie the series with the Orlando Magic

Cards on the table: I am a Cavs fan and not tremendously fond of Lebron. He broke my heart… blah, blah, blah. However, I feel as though I’ve gotten past the indignity of being embarrassed on national TV enough to provide a different viewpoint on his fourth quarter troubles without making any Delonte, Hairline, or Le___ jokes. That’s right; I’m going to try to be mature about this. I also won’t be using any statistics in this article for a couple of reasons: 1) I suck at understanding statistics, and 2) They aren’t particularly useful to me when I’m attempting to view this through a psychological lense. This post will be filled with opinions and theories, so if you disagree with me, that’s fine.

It’s unfortunate that because of our initial (ok, ongoing) reaction to his bridge burning exit, Cleveland fans have lost all credibility with regard to Lebron’s game. We have watched more of his career than any other group, but since most of us haven’t been able to write objectively, this experience has been nullified. Hopefully, I can shed some light on his troubles using that insight. After all, to witness is not the same as seeing, rather it is to see and then go forth and tell.

Yes, Lebron was effective in the clutch during his tenure in Cleveland. His heroics in the 2007 series against the Pistons is the example most have used to convey this point. However, I’m going to expand this beyond the generally accepted statistical definition of “clutch time” (The last 5 minutes of a game in which there is less than a 5 point lead difference in score). Why would I do that? Because I’ve been hearing a lot of pundits talking about how he never wanted the clutch shots in Cleveland; that he was forced into it out of necessity. I would point out that passing it to Boobie Gibson is at least as good as dumping it to Mario Chalmers, but I don’t need to in order to make my point.

Lebron James lived for taking last second shots in Cleveland. Not only during the afore mentioned “clutch time,” but for almost every possession that he could. Post 2007, Lebron expanded his game beyond mercilessly driving to the basket with an unstoppable combination of speed, power, and accuracy. His newfound jumpshot was the tool that put him over the top in many ways, but I believe it to be the beginning of the end for his clutch reputation. You see, Lebron’s unstoppable drives to the basket relied heavily on drawing foul calls. He can contort his body in a way that is virtually impossible to defend without fouling, which made this an extremely useful skill to have in the first three and a half quarters. However, in clutch time, the refs tend to swallow their whistles and “let them play.” I remember watching him get to the basket in the closing minutes of more than a few close games, only to get mugged by the defense and miss the shot with no foul. That only has to happen so many times before one realizes that the refs will not put a player on the line with 0.1 seconds on the clock, as Lebron did, and he adjusted by turning those drives into jump shots.

In his final years in Cleveland, Lebron adopted a new pattern. He would get most of his team mates involved in the first three quarters (also when he probably got most of his assists), and in the final quarter he would break plays and dribble out the shot clock and launch up a prayer. Over and over he did this. It didn’t matter what the defense did, Lebron would almost always take the shots with the shot clock winding down. Keep in mind that most of these games were already almost out of reach for the opposing teams, but the strategy was great because it burned clock regardless of the outcome of the shot. The fans loved it because it worked. His team loved it because they got their shots earlier in the game. The media loved it because it fit their narrative. Most importantly, Lebron loved it because it propagated his legacy as an assassin in the mold of Michael.

So why was his change of style in the clutch the beginning of the end? It wasn’t, directly. To me, the change is indicative of his awareness. I don’t think that Lebron has stopped taking last second shots because he has better options now, or that he is scared of the moment. I think, and this is obviously a guess, that Lebron was at his best while in the protective cocoon of Cleveland and the Cavaliers’ organization. I honestly think that Lebron is a sensitive guy (not soft, this isn’t an attack) and that adopting the “King” nickname and rolling with the biblical allegories were a defense mechanism. Being beloved and undoubted was vital to his confidence in those moments when overcoming the extreme stress that one’s body undergoes in those final seconds. The not-so-secret to confidence is faking it until you believe it yourself. I think Lebron needed to be protected from himself. Perhaps instead of criticizing him for being sheltered, we should look at it as necessary to bolster his self esteem. Perhaps the Cavaliers organization shouldn’t be mocked for being the ones to shelter him, as I believe this may have been the best strategy to maximize his potential.

I am continually surprised that Lebron hasn’t conquered this yet. He has evolved as a player countless times. I still believe that he will, but perhaps it will take an injury to Wade for him to finally regain his “swagger” (which he used to describe his shot in the same interview that the quote in the beginning of this post is from).  Perhaps not. Lebron has to adjust to being hated because it’s not going away. He has to find a new way to restore that confidence. He has to trick himself into believing that it would be stupid to give the ball to anyone else in those closing seconds. Since he cannot go back to being the do-no-wrong savior of his hometown team, he must find a way to manufacture that confidence and believe in himself again.

If I had to pick someone to take a last shot for my team, Lebron would still be one of the first names out of my mouth. His problem isn’t in making or missing the shot, it’s in believing that he should take it, and doing just that.

IGHN Presents: The Backdoor Pass – Episode 0

Boosh and Spacefunmars discuss the dramatic effect that walking in an NBA player’s shoes can have by comparing notes on NBA2K My Player. This is the pilot episode of the new IGHN podcast hosted by Boosh.

The Backdoor Pass - Episode 0 [ 49:57 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download