NBA players f*cking love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Impact

This week in news that will warm your cold, cold heart: The indomitable and tall-as-hell NBA players like to chow down on PB&J sammies before they hit the court. 

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Indeed, these grown men who get paid for their athletic prowess like eating the sandwiches you savored on middle school field trips. Makes you think you, too, could beat Shaq or maybe finally dribble properly if you simply start hitting the Jif jar. 

As reported by ESPN's Baxter Holmes, the peanut butter ritual began with the 2008 Boston Celtics. Fueled by the power of PB&J, the athletes were on their A-game on the court and thus a tradition was born. As the players moved to other teams in the league, other NBA players began snacking on the cafeteria classic before games. 

"Athletes are strange people," Lakers coach Luke Walton told Holmes. "We've got weird habits." 

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Holmes broaches several theories as to why the basketball phenoms have coopted PB&Js as their pregame snack of choice. Some NBA experts believe the sandwiches caught on because athletes are superstitious, and others affirmed that the snack evokes nostalgic feelings. Comfort food can help a player feed good and play good. 

But the hidden efficacy of PB&J could be biological, too. Calorie-dense foods like peanut butter spark a flood of opioids and later, serotonin in the brain, Holmes noted. 

"It's an effect ... that's similar to sex," Holmes wrote, explaining that one expert compared the PB-induced euphoria to post-coitus. Well then. 

Whether or not peanut butter and jelly is in fact a performance enhancing sandwich, athletes from all types of sports absolutely adore peanut butter. Olympians like swimmer Ryan Lochte and gymnasts Simone Biles and Aly Raisman have previously professed their love for the nutty spread. 

Holmes' story did not mention what happens how NBA players with peanut allergies are impacted by the PB&J craze. Let's hope they don't haze them and simply offer their deepest sympathies.