BallinEurope nears the end of The 35 Greatest Basketball YouTubes of All-Time with truly the cream of the crop from YouTube contributors. Today, we’ve got adrenaline-inducing excitement, record-breaking achievement, history-making tournament action, and the addiction of 2001.
And apologies in advance to a certain fan demographic for no. 3 on this list; y’all can console yourselves again with YouTube no. 8, if you’d like – or just skip to no. 2.
5. Cibona Zagreb vs. Partizan Belgrade, 2010 Adriatic League championship, with a finish probably even better than “0.4.” Those who saw this game or even saw this video fresh were blown away. ESPN’s Bill Simmons tweeted about it and Henry Abbott, El Hefe de ESPN TrueHoop Network, once called this clip goosebump-inducing: That’s endorsement enough for BiE.
4. Kobe Bryant 81. If you’ve never seen this one before, watch it. If you have seen this before, you need no further encouragement from me. The NBA account-hosted, cleaner and tighter version of this video may be watched by clicking here – you know, it’s got the “Embedding disabled by request.”
3. What truly happened in Eurobasket 2007. Sure, it’s a bit biased – and by “a bit,” BiE means “extremely absolutely totally” – after all, this YouTube was put together by the folks writing a blog called “Greek Hoopz.” And sure, it’s a bit dated, but whoa is this hilarious, unless of course you’re down with Team Spain.
This video’s combination is nothing but pure YouTube goodness: a Phil Jacksonesque mixing of game tape and cinematic action; a thoroughly addictive score (please help BallinEurope, anyone who knows the title and/or performer of this song); Michael Moorish levels of earnestness; tight editing; and an appropriately vicious sense of humor that keeps BiE coming back to this one at least once a month since it’s been posted to LOL every time.
All in all, a solid “10” on a scale of 1-10 for overall YouTube excellence.
(Sorry, Spain.)
2. Freestyle 150. A mind-blowing visual demonstration of skills by NBA superstars and American freestyle ballers is accompanied by a genius score put together by Afrika Bambaataa, Steven “Boogie” Brown and Jeff Elmassian composed of nothing but sounds of the game.
One of the freestylers playing in the video described the buzz in the ‘States about this ad campaign thusly: “Everyone was talking about it. From grandmothers to little kids, wherever I went people were running to the TV as soon as they heard that music.”
As one who was there, please allow BiE to confirm this sentiment to be true: From its debut during the 2001 NBA All-Star Game to the end of the playoffs, this thing was everywhere. It was on MTV, it was in the Village Voice, it instantly inspired parodies both semi-pro and professional (the latter represented by a throwaway gag in Scary Movie 2, natch). Directly in response, the footballers also had a bitchin’ production in similar fashion made.
“Freestyle 150” is still awesome nearly ten years later, having entranced over 2 million viewers – many of which might never have seen this without YouTube. Enjoy!
Tomorrow: Why, The Greatest Basketball YouTube of All-Time, of course. Guess if you like; BiE thinks you’ll be (pleasantly) surprised…
