Morning Links: Kiss The Week Goodbye

Sports

Billy Hunter Says Kiss the 2011-2012 NBA Season Goodbye – To paraphrase one of our commenters, as a Dallas Mavericks fan I’m happy the team gets to be champions into perpetuity. We should agree to send all of our good NBA players to China in exchange for them erasing our national debt. The math works out. [Smoking Section]

Magic Regrets His Early Retirement – I’m starting to think Magic Johnson never had HIV, and he just said he did as a public service announcement because everything in the early 90s was about HIV. He probably doesn’t know how to ride a skateboard, either. [Yardbarker]

The Animated GIF Guide to MMA Failure, Part 2 – Gifs are the new peep show machine. You drop a penny in and get to see a guy punch another guy for a few seconds, then move on to the Fortune Teller. In this analogy, “football” is the Fortune Teller. [Cage Potato]

Competitive Facial Hair Growing – Finally, a sport I’d be worse at than basketball. I guess Austin, Texas, is the world’s biggest competitive facial hair growing pick-up league. [SI via Hot Clicks]

With Leather

The Attractive Female Celebrity’s Guide To Drafting Fantasy Running Backs – I’m not knocking Burnsy’s system, but I think I’d rather draft an Alison Brie than a Mila Kunis or an Elisha Cuthbert. Besides, an Elisha Cuthbert would get killed by the Carolina Panthers. [With Leather]

The Dugout: A-Rod’s Violent Gambling Parties – For those of you complaining about a lack of closure on the Pete Rose joke, I had a big long thing where he saves his game in Armadillo and then realizes he’s low on health and has no ammo or money, so he can’t recover and has to start all over. That took up like three times the length of the Dugout just to get to a “you saved your game and have to live with the consequences” gag. I did you a favor! [The Dugout]

Bubba Smith, 1945-2011: A Video Tribute – We believe you guys, so we wont dispute you. But if you’re lying to us, we’ll come back and shoot you. Word. [With Leather]

How To Get Body Dysmorphia: Attend The Crossfit Games – Don’t forget to flip through Matt Ufford’s photo essay one more time today, so you feel like sh** about yourself all weekend. Still reminding myself about how brains are more important than muscles well into adulthood. Didn’t think I’d have to keep doing that. [With Leather]

Not Sports

10 TV Characters Who Should Die For The Good Of The Show – I wish “Scrubs” was on, so my contribution to this list could be “everyone who has ever appeared on Scrubs, both on television and in real life”. That clears out Zach Braff, fake Becky from “Roseanne” AND the plastic-faced version of Drew Carey’s ex-girlfriend. And Brendan Fraser! [Warming Glow]

The Four Most Ridiculous Sci-Fi Sexpisodes: When Aliens Force Our Heroes to Do It – “Sexpisodes”. When a character gets raped on a TV show, does it happen in a Rape-isode? I’m going to start saying all those HBO shows feature Buttf**kisodes. [Gamma Squad]

The Best of the Internet’s Lovefest with Shark Week, Obviously – I think sharks are pretty cool too, I guess, but jeez. Shark Week was pretty cool back when Kelly Clarkson was the American Idol. Yes, I am a snarky Shark Week Hipster. [UPROXX]

The Top 10 Highest Grossing Films Of Summer (So Far) – (1) The Smurfs, (2) The Snorks, (3) Goober and the Ghost Chasers (with the voice talents of Ricky Gervais and Lil Bow Wow), (4) Speed Buggy (gritty reimagining, stars Jason Statham), (5) Wacky Races (stars Ludacris, is extremely preachy, might win Best Picture), (6) Scooby-Doo Rises (Shaggy has leather and chain-mail bodysuit). [Film Drunk]