Shaquille O’Neal (photo. @Lakers)
If you’re going to make it in the NBA, you need a wide repertoire of skills. That’s why players spend endless hours mastering their footwork, spin moves, balance and overall body control. I’m talking, of course, about their dance moves.
Today, the NBA is like that little town from Footloose at the end of the movie, liberated at last from the shackles of the sexually-repressed, evangelical, Christian-right community leaders, shamelessly and deliriously entranced by the rhythm trapped inside them for so long.
Over the past few years, pregame dance routines have become ubiquitous, and spur-of-the-moment You-Got-Served-style dance competitions could erupt at any moment.
Everyone likes to crow about the NBA’s gawky fashions these days, but spontaneous sideline celebrations and other random acts of rhythm have been the biggest trend of the past few years, often with mixed results. But that’s what makes it so entertaining. Today, we pay tribute to the most bizarre, hilarious, and stupefying moments in NBA dance history.
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10. TYLER HANSBROUGH, aka Psycho T, aka Tyler the Destroyer, aka Evolutionary Mark Madsen
Recently named one of the two most hated college basketball players of all time, Tyler Hansbrough is the GIF that keeps on giving. Apparently unfazed by the fact that he is almost universally despised around the league, Hansbrough overcompensates for a lack of legitimate basketball skill by outhustling everyone around him. He’s the bull in the china shop, the gorilla in the phone booth, so it should be no surprise that his celebration dances are a frightening display of overzealous awkwardness.
GIF of Psycho T High-Stepping:
9. ROBERT SACRE
Many bench players aspire to the rank of human victory cigar, but only a select few reach such extraordinary heights as seen here.