I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday's Sprite Slam Dunk Contest last night - it was 10X better than the previous 5 years of slam dunks combined. For those of you who did NOT watch the contest, here it is in its entirety:
Click the jump for my analysis:
I REALLY thought that this contest was clearly one-sided, even before the festivities started last night. The big name was LA's own, Blake Griffin, who is a monster dunker. Don't get me wrong - he is one of my top five sports players to watch all-time, but his dunks last night were a bit overrated. But, let's start from the beginning:
The first contestant, Toronto Raptors' DeMarr DeRozen, completed two decent dunks - the first one gathering the ball between his legs perpendicular to the basket and dunking it in; and the second of him alley-ooping and dunking the ball - all with his right hand. The first one produced a 44 (too low); the second, a 50 (a little too high).
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Serge Ibaka was one of two players (the other I'll mention later) that really, REALLY got robbed in the dunk contest. His first dunk, the free-throw-line dunk, was highly underrated and got a terrible score of 45. C'mon, man, if Dr. J and MJ did the same dunk but one step closer and get 50's, why can't Serge Ibaka get the same results?
But I had a problem with Ibaka's second dunk. A) Too much, and over-the-top entertainment; and B) He took the idea from the other dunk contestant, JaVale MeGee. Here, take a look: (0:27 seconds into the video)
As you can tell, Ibaka just changed the object from a paper to a doll that 'belonged' to a little kid running onto the court. It's a pretty good dunk (I'm not gonna lie), but that's just mean, Ibaka. He must have seen McGee's practice dunk and replicated it yesterday. The first score of 45 was WAY TOO LOW, while the second score of 45 was fine with me. But I gotta love Chuck's (Charles Barkley) comment about the kid: "He's a cute kid, but that's a bad haircut." Classic Chuck.
Now comes the dark horse of the event, my favorite, JaVale McGee. He made two unbelievable dunks which have never, ever been seen before. I loved the fact that he brought in a second hoop and did what I like to call the Double Dunk. The second three-basketball dunk was done perfectly, but he did that dunk as his first round second dunk because Ibaka took McGee's idea of biting an object on the hoop while dunking. I liked the fact that he got his mother involved in bring him the third basketball. But I did not like the fact that he was 'kissing up' to the judges prior to that dunk. McGee deserved two 50's with both dunks, which he ultimately got.
Just like how Yao Ming got voted as a starter into the All-Star game this year without playing a minute on the court, I feel like the same thing happened with Blake Griffin. Both players got the name recognition and the popularity - but I feel that with the fan vote, both were clearly one-sided. I liked Griffin's first dunk, a 360-degree, behind-the-head dunk, but like many other people who watched the contest, it wasn't deserving of a 49, only a point off of JaVale's Double Dunk. Griffin's second dunk, a side-of-the-hoop windmill, got a 46 - and it was identical to DeMarr's first dunk, except without the between-the-legs factor that got the Raptor star a 44.
The finals, in my opinion, should have been DeRozen (94 points) against MeGee (100 points), but because of Blake's popularity and the fact that backstage he had a Kia Optima waiting in the tunnel of the Staples Center, there was no way he was not going to the finals.
Blake's first dunk - the hand in the cookie jar, or as other people would call it, The Honey Dip Dunk - was very good; same with McGee's cradle dunk along the baseline.
But the NBA is all about entertainment, and Blake Griffin did just that (with the help of TNT and former Houston Rocket Kenny "The Jet" Smith and Clippers' teammate Baron Davis) with his final dunk. The hoopla regarding the dunk (no pun intended) was just too, TOO much. First off, the trio thought of the idea of bringing in a choir group to sing "I Believe I Can Fly" prior to the dunk; secondly, the dunk was mediocre (Chuck would agree with me); there was an over-emphasis by Smith regarding the hype of the dunk; and lastly, BLAKE JUMPED OVER THE HOOD OF THE CAR! I would be more impressed if he did a between-the-legs or a 360-degree dunk while receiving the toss from B-Dub over the top of the car. Any good dunker can do what Blake Griffin did just there, and the same dunk has been done before; on Sports Science (a former television show that showed the physics of sports) three years ago, Chris "Skywalker" Lowery did the exact same dunk with a convertible.
Obviously, McGee had one more dunk, but no matter what dunk he would do, he would still be denied the dunk contest king because of Griffin's theatrics. That is why Ibaka's "doll dunk" was so vital; had he done a different dunk and McGee did a similar 'paper dunk' in the first round and McGee doing the three-basketball dunk as his second dunk in the final round, it would have been a much closer race. After all, McGee said after the contest: "Definitely was trying to get the crowd into it, we knew they was going to be text voting, too. Most of the people in the world are women, so we felt it was good to get those texts" - since the final round was driven by textaholics.
Oh well. Maybe next year for McGee, hopefully. But Blake will be back next year in Orlando for the slam dunk contest. As Washington Post Wizards Insider Michael Lee said in his critique: McGee was happy with his performance and said he would likely compete again. Maybe he can jump over a truck. "Hey," he said. "I might."
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