With the NBA Draft just days away, we can pretty much predict the first five-to-10 players to be chosen in the first round. It’s a little bit tougher to determine what kind of endorsement deals the top players will get, but shoe contracts will surely be signed and the biggest restaurant chains will get new spokesmen.

Then there will be the guys who get paid to endorse the products that you can only scratch your head and wonder, “Why on earth is he sponsored by this company?” It’s happened before and you know it’s going to happen again. Hopefully, for the sake of the athlete’s dignity, they don’t end up endorsing products like these:

We know now that Raph was shootin’ the juice, but did he really need help, you know, shootin’ the juice? A sponsership with a major company like Viagra will put bones in your pocket — in more than one way — but this is the most degrading product you could endorse. It shows that you’re washed up and you just don’t have it anymore.

2. Griffey’s paintball gun

It’s a fairly well-known fact that Reds’ slugger Ken Griffey, Jr., his wife and kids love to go paintballing. Hell, he’s got 30 cousins that paintball with them. (The raspy-voiced host of that YouTube video, Bea Youngs, is the most star-struck, ditsy broad in all the land of paintball.)

Griffey, Jr. is a great enough athlete that he’s got his own shoes, and he’s had a chocolate candy bar named after him, despite the fact that he is allergic to chocolate. But having your own Swingman Griffey paintball gun? That’s absolutely rediculous.

3. Michael Vick for AirTran

Of course AirTran has ripped up its contract with dog-killer Michael Vick, but the two were once linked. But why in the world does an airline company need to have a professional football player linked with it? They don’t fly the plane. They don’t serve drinks on the plane. They don’t show you how to use the seat cushion as a floatation device. The only thing Vick has in common with airplanes is that he’s flown on them and I’d like to throw him out of one without a parachute.

4. Muhammad Ali for d-Con

“This is the legend of  Muhammad Ali, the greatest fighter that ever will be. He talks a great deal and brags, indeed, of a powerful punch and blinding speed. Ali’s got a left, Ali’s got a right. If he hits you once, you’re asleep for the night.” - Ali

Muhammad Ali once said this, aiming it at his oppenents in the ring, naturally. But the same could have been directed at rodents. Ali endorsed d-Con Roach Spray, because he “don’t want you living with roaches.”

When an athlete endorses a cerain brand, the intent is to make you believe that the said product worked amazing for them, changed their lives maybe or was something that will make you want it because they have it. It just gives you the impression that Ali had roaches all over his house. He probably didn’t, but that’s what the ad is telling us. Would you really want roach spray just because Ali has it? No. If you need to kill roaches, you’ll buy the fucking roach spray.

5. John Amaechi for HeadBlade

This product makes sense. It’s a bald athlete endorsing a product for a head-shaving tool. The thing that makes this stand out, of course, is that the endorsement became extremely popular right around the time when Amaechi came out of the closet.

He became the first pro athlete to land a corporate endorsement deal after coming out. It was a sneaky tactic: Create a nation-wide buzz, then sell a product while my name is freshly imprinted in the minds of everyone. Well, like Amaechi’s sexual preferences, whatever tickles your pickle.

6. Dale Earnhardt for Sharpie

He wears a Budweiser cap and jumpsuit while he drives a Budweiser car, but Dal Earnhardt, Jr. signs his autographs with a Sharpie. And so do 99 percent of all other professional athletes! Which is why this is an absolutely retarted sponsorship.

Plus, a Sharpie is a marker. A marker. A fucking marker. My name is Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and I sign autographs with a fucking marker! Just like everyone else. When I go out to buy something for an athlete to sign an autograph for me, I don’t think about Dale. I think about a MARKER! You’re wasting your money, Sharpie.

7. Mike Golic and John Kruk for Nutri-System.

It’s a wonderful thing that this weight-loss system works to change the lives of those who are overweight. And yes, former professional athletes are visual proof that it works. They are great examples and great endorsers.

But we have to remember that these are former athletes, not current athletes. Do we really care if Mike Golic and John Kruk got their weight down after their playing days? You know, since they’ve got to stay in tip-top shape to sit behind a desk and discuss sports on televsion and the radio. Ohhh, I want to go on that weight loss program, not because of how much weight they’ve lost, but because they sound thinner on the radio!

P.S. Both of these photos have to have been Photoshopped. They’re still pretty large.

8. Deion Sanders as the Road Runner

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Pepsi sponsoring you. It’s a huge brand that’s common in the lives of many conmsumers. But portraying yourself as the road runner? Seriously?

A+ for creativity. It keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time, especially if you’re a Toons fan, because you just want that poor coyote to catch the bird for once. He’s been trying do so since 1949. He’s probably starving at this point.

Then Sanders shows up out of a cloud of dust, chugs a Pepsi and he’s off again. Only to leave Wile E. by himself. Again. Someone please get this coyote a girlfriend and a buffet.

9. Carson Palmer for John Morrell hot dogs

This ad is just disturbing. Plain and simple. No one — well, no straight male, certainly — wants to see a grown man open wide and prepare to shove a fat weiner in his mouth with a caption over his head saying “GO Long..er!” It’s just gay.

Nothing wrong with getting money to endorse hot dongs, er, dogs. Michael Jordan endorsed Ball Park Franks. But the way these weiners are advertised, the only consumers are going to be horny 14-year-old boys.

How about an ad that says, Carson Palmer has a giant weiner. Do you?

10. LeBron James for Bubblelicious

We love the fact that one of the greatest athletes out there in any professional sport endorses a product that’s more or less geared directly toward children. Have LeBron blow pink and blue bubbles and the kids will want to do the same. They’ll want to grow a bigger bubble than LeBron, because they certainly won’t ever play ball like him.

The only criticism we have is that he looks goofy with a big pink bubble coming out of his face. It’s just silly.