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Weird Week in 🏀: Butt stuff, 9-inchers, and crappy nicknames

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Every Sunday, theScore highlights the week's lighter moments from around the basketball universe. Here's what caught our eye this week.

Cavs spank Grizzlies, still lose

Whacking former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate Jae Crowder on the bottom? To quote Joe Buck, that is a "disgusting act" by Tristan Thompson - in the eyes of the referees, anyway. The seemingly playful gesture earned the Cavs' big man his second technical foul of the game, granting him an early trip to the showers.

Asked postgame whether the words exchanged between the two impacted the call, crew chief Kenny Mauer replied: "Just simply the butt slap."

A note to players: When you slap butts on the court, you do so at your own peril.

Alika Jenner / Getty Images Sport / Getty

The Mailman returns to sender

On the topic of athletes touching butts, NFL wideout Odell Beckham Jr. took some heat at the national championship game between LSU and Clemson after he slapped a police officer's derriere during the celebration in the locker room. OBJ has since had his arrest warrant rescinded.

But our real concern here at Weird Week is another moment from OBJ's perhaps-not-quite-sober celebration tour, when his 5-foot-11, 198-pound frame attempted to post up fellow Louisiana native Karl Malone.

I know the former Utah Jazz great is a Hall of Famer, but who lets someone block you on a pantomimed shot?

Changing the game

The Philadelphia 76ers took the analytics movement to new heights during Saturday night's tango with the Chicago Bulls.

Look, this is just headsy basketball. Everyone knows teams have deployed five defenders since time immemorial.

But you know what's a bigger number than five? Six. Six is a bigger number than five. That's just math.

Say what you want about Brett Brown's Xs and Os, but we haven't seen an offensive paradigm shift like this since Kings owner Vivek Ranadive pondered the notion of using a full-time cherry picker.

A game of inches

Brooklyn Nets play-by-play man Ryan Ruocco had to know what he was inviting with an alley-oop of an observation: that Orlando Magic center Mo Bamba is "a nine-incher."

Jurassic snark

Toronto Raptors forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson is dangerously close to experiencing something everyone has to go through at some point in life: The realization that a lot of badass dinosaurs - including the ferocious velociraptor - had feathers.

There's a strong possibility that whoever designed the featherless, historically incorrect predators of "Jurrasic Park" fame - from which the Raptors' original branding was derived - was also involved in the creation of the abominable wax figure pictured below:

Green with envy

With the Golden State Warriors sitting dead last in the standings, Draymond Green hasn't had much to crow about. The "Inside the NBA" team seized upon the cantankerous big man's misfortunes this week.

Pointing out the fact that Draymond's averaging just 8.4 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 5.6 assists per game for a squad decimated by injuries is kind of a low blow.

Then again, low blows are something with which he should be very familiar.

A crappy error

Last Sunday, we asked you, the readers, to submit your nominations to the Weird Week mailbag. That's a lot of pressure to put on someone who's quite possibly reading this on the toilet.

But answer the call, you did. Weird Week reader Eran Zameret passed along this nugget from a recent Los Angeles Lakers broadcast, during which broadcaster Stu Lantz christened a new nickname for swingman Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

This puts a very different spin on the phrase "streaky shooter."

Psst, look over here!

If you want to be featured in the next edition of Weird Week, send a submission to andrew.potter@thescore.com. The more obscure, the better.

And make sure you come back next Sunday for more oddities, inanities, and obscenities from the wonderful world of basketball.

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