Yesterday marked the first meaningless burp of the 2012-13 NBA season, as players casually took their time arriving to their respective arenas to be prepped for clichés and generic positive statements about their chances this year, as part of the 2012 NBA Media Day. Basically, it’s a glorified way for teams to drum up last second season ticket sales and David Stern to remind Major League Baseball that it only has a few weeks left before a preseason NBA game will outdraw the World Series.
In some cases, though, there is some honest-to-Cthulhu excitement, as teams like the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers introduced their newest players, while the Brooklyn Nets reminded everyone that HEY, WE HAVE NEW UNIFORMS NOW! COME LOOK AT OUR NEW UNIFORMS! THEY’RE NEW! For the Heat, the buzz was the addition of Ray Allen, whose departure from Boston is viewed as treason by many Celtics fans and players, and the Lakers, of course, introduced Dwight Howard and Steve Nash. Also, EVERYONE LOOK AT BROOKLYN’S NEW UNIFORMS! THEY WERE DESIGNED BY JAY-Z!
But all of the teams had their PR and social media people on full alert yesterday, as they Tweeted and Facebooked pictures of the NBA’s best and brightest awkwardly hamming it up for the local media. Some teams had a lot of fun, while some teams, well, you can’t expect the Charlotte Bobcats to pretend like they were at Disney. After the jump, I’ve gathered the best of the NBA’s Media Day so you can pretend like you were there for every team.
I hope Kobe Bryant calls Dwight Howard “Not Shaq” for fun this season.
“Haha, balloons. Get it?”
“So would the Trade Machine accept that?”
Kudos to the Bucks PR team for combining all of the boring pictures into one.
All four of these guys are considered the captains for the Bulls. How does that even work? Is one of them a Super Captain?
Yup, Cleveland.
Boston players actually had a quick Media Day so they could fly to Turkey for an exhibition game. That’s about 15 hours of complaining about Ray Allen.
“I don’t know, like 300 pounds per day without vegetables.”
Whoa, enough with the tough questions, you guys!
This wins the most adorable picture from Media Day.
It took every ounce of will power I have to not to photoshop that sign to read: “HORNY”. What can I say? I’m an adult.
That’s not a serious face, he’s actually asleep.
Not pictured: Everyone laughing and pointing.
Iman Shumpert’s hair wins everything else.
It was this or Arron Afflalo. You’re welcome.
Haha, Shawn Marion is such a jokester! Get him a reality show already.
“Hey Brook, how do you feel about the team trying desperately to trade you for months before pretending that they wanted to keep you all along?”
“Great. Feels great.”
I really like the Nuggets’ new alternate jerseys. No joke. The faux hawk? Not as much.
“And that’s the giraffe’s penis.”
Someone hug the poor guy already.
Jose Calderon spends his time waiting to be traded by taking pictures of his stinky ass feet.
Apparently the Rockets’ “New Era” comes without a stable camera.
As a Magic fan, I can’t even begin to tell you how happy this picture makes me.
What’s Tony looking at? Hot ass most likely.
If I were a Suns blogger, the rest of my year would be set with this picture and photoshop.
“Can you believe Harden said he is glad the league is cracking down on flopping?”
The T-Wolves apparently promote their growing group of foreign players as “The Internationals”, so remember the next time that you’re laid off from your job as an NBA point guard.
Very well done, Warriors.
I like John Wall’s shoes. That is all.
