Junk Food Nation!  Today is the NBA’s birthday.  On August 3, 1949, the BAA agreed to merge with the NBL, creating the new National Basketball Association. In 1950, the NBA finally racially integrated.  And now, over 60 years later, NBA players have been locked out and are contemplating taking their talents to Turkey.  This truly is a global sport.

In honor of this momentous occasion, I thought I’d share my two favorite NBA moments.  A lot of people go with Jordan’s final shot over the Utah Jazz in the 1998 finals, or maybe Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points in one game, but not me.  The two moments here are just the ones that jump out at me, and I remember exactly where I was during each of these moments:

1) Reggie Miller’s two 3-pointers in 7 seconds to tie the game with 13 seconds left in Game 1 of the 1995 Eastern Conference semifinals.  I was in 10th grade, sitting on my parents’ grey sectional sofa, I’m sure wearing some sort of neon Body Glove gear.  I wasn’t a huge basketball fan at the time, but my friends kind of got me into it through fantasy basketball (which we scored using newspapers).  I hated the Knicks at the time, being from New York and wanting to rebel.  When Miller hit that second three, I went nuts.

More after the jump.  Today’s junk food: Keebler Fudge Shoppe Jumbo Peanut Butter Sticks!

The Money Shot

Ok, I’m gonna just lay this out there – THESE ARE CLEARLY A LITTLE DEBBIE NUTTY BAR KNOCKOFF, NO?

What the hell Keebler?  Did Little Debbie’s intellectual property rights run out?  Chocolate fudge, peanut butter, wafer cookies – WTF.  Do I even NEED to write a post here, or should I just go straight to letting the PTO know?

Counterpoint: Little Debbie Nutty Bars are delicious and these look tasty too.  I’ll stow my complaint in exchange for several free boxes of this fudgey peanut butter wonderland.  Thanks, Keebler.

I'd be one happy elf too

Keebler provides a nice cross section look at what these cookies look like right on the cover.  The picture of the bucket of fudge and frosting bag full of peanut butter are funny – if I had either of those, I’d be dipping my entire hand in like I was a cartoon bear with honey.

Individually packaged to prevent gluttony - yeah right

This snack is individually wrapped – or in other words, if you eat more than one you’re a fat ass.  Great.

Fudgey glory!

Holy mother of – even though I knew what to expect inside, seeing it in real life is still amazing. Melted fudge was adhering to the foil wrapping, making this treat a messy endeavor…an amazing, lick-the-wrapper, lick-your-fingers sort of tasty messy endeavor.  Time for a bite…

Mmmmm peanut butter.

Tastes just like I thought it would.  Um, this gooey picture doesn’t do it justice.  Let’s go in further…

MMMMM PEANUT BUTTER!!!!

…THERE WE GO.  Good lord, it’s like a layer cake of happiness!  Perfectly gooey melting fudge encasing four crispy wafer cookies with generous layers of peanut butter in between.  I’ll drooling just looking at this photo again.

A perfect balance of chocolate, crunch and PB – and tasting exactly like the old Little Debbie original.  The chocolate gives way to a very nice crunch, and the smooth peanut butter taste mixes well into the fudge almost instantly.

Who cares about trademarks and patents – I’d plow through all six in the box without a second thought.

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2) Vince Carter’s dunk contest entires into the 2000 NBA dunk contest.  The dunk contest itself was a momentous occasion – they hadn’t had it in two years, nixing it in 1998 and 1999, because of waning interest.  So when they brought it back, people were already OO-ing and AA-ing.  And then the slate of performers: Stevie Franchise, McGrady, and of course, Vinsanity.  Air Canada, as they called him, VC wanted to be known as the greatest dunker of all time – and he showed it.  Scoring a perfect score on nearly every dunk, capped by his cookie jar elbow-in-the-net dunk, Vinsanity single handedly brought the NBA dunk contest back to life.  I was sitting in the basement floor of my club’s house in college my junior year, and everyone around me was going nutso.  Bunch of nerdy kids hootin’ and hollerin’ like no tomorrow. It was awesome.

What were your favorite NBA moments?  Share them in the comments below.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy