Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
James White and Gerald Green went at it in China once before
James White and Gerald Green went at it in China once before
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
That was the second dunk to come to mind. The first was Nick Collison's McDonald's All-American High School Dunk Contest performance, in which he successfully cartwheeled and dunked. I don't think he got a perfect score, but it was probably higher than it ever should have been considering, like the Maggette dunk, it was just a routine jam taking place after a non-routine, non-dunk-related stunt.Comment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
I wonder what dunk ross is gonna do...
<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/i9ZvWQScc_U" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>
Between the legs seems to be done alot now. I'm thinking he'd get around 44-46 on that dunk?Comment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
I still think there's a fair amount of variations and sylistic improvements that can be made to the between-the-legs slam to still make it spectacular. Just a routine one like we see in that clip? Not going to turn people's heads. But if he were to provide his own twist, he could be in good shape.Comment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
Or rather if he does his own variation
Has anyone done a 180 through the legs yet, I can't recall at the moment?
How about doing that from behind the backboard to the front of the rim...
Just personal creativity without a gimmick
Like Iggy..who got robbedComment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
^Ya. I watched back that contest again today and it was stupid at the judges. They didn't penalize him for all those misses, but if anyone else missed, they're like "I would have given him a ___ if he made it on 1st try,but since he missed, I can't give him that high of a score".
I think they do rig at least how far someone gets in a contest, especially since that person does have to notify NBA of any special props or anything being used. Look at the Griffin one, all the controversy(and someone even releasing a report that Griffin won before contest was over) in that. NBA has a deal with KIA, so the fact that one of the guys in the contest(who just happened to be Blake Griffin in this case) was gonna dunk over that car, seemed like NBA just had him in the finals for that.
How will fan voting work? Like twitter for example. How can they tell that people were voting the second voting opened and didn't start before contest started?
They should use special hashtags then. Not just generic ones like #TerrenceRoss,#JamesWhite and stuff, it should be #2013DunkChampionTRoss or #2013DunkChampionJWhite or something.
It has to be something that nobody will even use before the voting begins.
Also...nba.com looking at pre contest faves....
Who wins in Houston?
Eric Bledsoe-8%
Jeremy Evans-2%
Kenneth Faried-10%
Gerald Green-36%
Terrence Ross-28%
James White-15%
So ya, will suck that 2 of the faves won't even make it to the finals.Comment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
Reminds me of Vince's 49 in the 2000 contest. Marv Albert and company gave Kenny Smith a hard time for giving Carter a 9 on his second dunk. Smith then went on a diatribe about how Carter had set the bar with his first slam (establishing what a 10 was) and he was only going to give another 10 if they exceeded what Carter did in round one.
Of course, on Steve Francis' very next dunk, a self-alley one hander, Smith's right there holding up the 10 placard, nodding his head in approval.
I don't think the contest is rigged. However, I do think certain dunkers can sometimes come into the event with enough hype that it becomes easier for them to advance to the finals. Blake Griffin advanced to the finals, but it's not as if he did so by missing half of his dunks and performing extremely lame slams for the ones he did make. I won't insist they were world changing dunks, but for as much hype as there was behind him and his leaping ability, the crowd was always electric for his slams and people were very accepting of anything he was trying to perform, and his slams were still pretty darn impressive. As such, dunks feel better to judges when the crowd's heavily engaged in the process. It's an advantage, but it's not a matter of fixing.I think they do rig at least how far someone gets in a contest, especially since that person does have to notify NBA of any special props or anything being used. Look at the Griffin one, all the controversy(and someone even releasing a report that Griffin won before contest was over) in that. NBA has a deal with KIA, so the fact that one of the guys in the contest(who just happened to be Blake Griffin in this case) was gonna dunk over that car, seemed like NBA just had him in the finals for that.
The first round is being judged by real judges, so fan voting will not decide who advances to the finals. The judges will still unfortunately be made up of fans only in the finals, but at least they're not judging the whole thing.So ya, will suck that 2 of the faves won't even make it to the finals.Last edited by VDusen04; 02-14-2013, 03:43 PM.Comment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
[quote=VDusen04;2044712767][quote=Majingir;2044712700]^Ya. I watched back that contest again today and it was stupid at the judges. They didn't penalize him for all those misses, but if anyone else missed, they're like "I would have given him a ___ if he made it on 1st try,but since he missed, I can't give him that high of a score".I'm not saying 2 faves won't make it cause of fans. I'm saying 2 faves won't make it cause of the whole east vs west format. 3 biggest faves all from east, only 1 can make it. The most voted for west player on the nba.com poll is behind the least voted on east player.Reminds me of Vince's 49 in the 2000 contest. Marv Albert and company gave Kenny Smith a hard time for giving Carter a 9 on his second dunk. Smith then went on a diatribe about how Carter had set the bar with his first slam (establishing what a 10 was) and he was only going to give another 10 if they exceeded what Carter did in round 1.
Of course, on Steve Francis' very next dunk, a self-alley one hander, Smith's right there holding up the 10 placard, nodding his head in approval.
I don't think the contest is rigged. However, I do think certain dunkers can sometimes come into the event with enough hype that it becomes easier for them to advance to the finals. Blake Griffin advanced to the finals, but it's not as if he did so by missing half of his dunks and performing extremely lame slams for the ones he did make. I won't insist they were world changing dunks, but for as much hype as there was behind him and his leaping ability, the crowd was always electric for his slams and people were very accepting of anything he was trying to perform. As such, dunks feel better to judges when the crowd's heavily engaged in the process. It's an advantage, but it's not a matter of fixing.
The first round is being judged by real judges, so fan voting will not decide who advances to the finals. The judges will still unfortunately be made up of fans only in the finals, but at least they're not judging the whole thing.
And never realized Rudy Gay had Kyle Lowry passing to him in dunk contest. Back in Memphis days.
Who are the judges for this contest? Would be cool if we had former dunk contest winners all as judges(like we have had in the past). Maybe this time it'd be something like Griffin,Howard,Nate,Carter,Kobe or something would have been cool to see.Comment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
[QUOTE=Majingir;2044712804][quote=VDusen04;2044712767]Ah, I understand what you were trying to say now and I agree that it is not my ideal format. I'd much prefer the top two scorers advance to the final round.
However, I'll be able to live with this format if a dunker for the West can prove their worth. It's always pretty easy to eye the favorites prior to the contest but sometimes weird things happen and we get outstanding contributions from players we weren't expecting and sometimes the favorites fall by the wayside (Shannon Brown).
The good news is, even if a great dunker misses the finals, he'll still have two opportunities to show us something awesome in the first round. If they make two great dunks and still don't advance, all that means to me is we've got ourselves a pretty entertaining contest (because someone will have bested him with even better dunks), which is all I want. There was a similar setup to the 2002 contest. That year, i felt Desmond Mason and Jason Richardson were the two best dunkers in the contest but Mason was eliminated in his first round showdown with Richardson. Even though he didn't advance, I was still entertained by what Mason was able to provide.
Regarding the judges for the contest, I heard a rumor that Hakeem Olajuwon was going to be a judge. If that's true, I'd guess Clyde Drexler would be there too, alongside other NBA folk with Houston ties.Comment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
[quote=VDusen04;2044712863][quote=Majingir;2044712804]2008 dunk contest was fairly good too. Moon(who I still think should have gone to finals, he got screwed cause 4/5 judges gave him a 9,and 1 gave him an 8,yet Gerald Green got all 9s on the following dunk which was worse than Moon,all because "Dwight Howard set the bar on Moons dunk(but somehow not greens)").
Regardless if Moon or Green made it to finals, whichever of the 2 didn't make it, still was a great 3rd place finisher.Comment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
SI's Top Ten Contest Dunks:
10. J.R. Rider's Between-the-Legs
9. Dwight Howard's Backboard Tap Pass
8. Dee Brown's No Look
7. Jason Richardson's Bounce Between-the-legs Reverse
6. Michael Jordan Sideways Windmill
5. Vince Carter's cuff clockwise 360 windmill
4. Gerald Green's Cupcake
3. Dwight Howard's Superman
2. Vince Carter's Elbow
1. Michael Jordan's Free Throw
I mentioned this elsewhere, but I do not believe Carter's windmill should be outside the top two. I also think Richardson's off-the-glass between-the-legs should have at least taken the spot of the slam of his that's included.
Gerald Green's cupcake dunk and Dwight Howard's Superman slam both being ranked above Carter's cuffed, clockwise 360 windmill makes my brain explode.Comment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
Dwight Howard's Superman slam being ranked above anything other than an outright miss makes my brain explode. I am not in any way a dunk purist that generally doesn't like throw-ins, but unlike a throw-in on somebody, which looks like triumph in the face of adversity, an undefended version just looks like a childlike cover-up of a miscalculation. In every context imaginable, having one's forward acceleration rapidly disrupted by an opposing force or stationary object carries a very different set of potential consequences than running out of momentum before a target is reached.
Any sports "journalist" who perpetuates the myth that he initially intended to throw it in, or that it was anything other than a shorted jump and desperate improvisation by a player tall enough to still have the opportunity to make it, should have their press privileges revoked.
Unfortunately (mostly for me since everyone else can just ignore it if they want) I also felt compelled to respond to this:
Even if you don't find the evidence convincing enough to conclude that the winner was predetermined before the contest actually began, Blake was going to reach the Kia-dunk final, barring a completely catastrophic performance. Ad campaigns (and dunk contests) aren't put together in a day. The fact that Griffin didn't sign his long-term deal with Kia until July of that year doesn't prove that it wasn't in the works much earlier. The saving grace of that win was that he deserved it on merit anyway.
The real travesty was "Krypto-Nate and Superman" in 2009. The winner wasn't predetermined then either, but the final participants definitely were. Even if you consider the evidence to be more purely circumstantial, watch it again and you'll see the strongest circumstantial evidence in the history of inconsequential sports sideshows (excluding those that are openly predetermined, because they can choose to go hog-wild with foreshadowing as it suits them).
Everyone had a decent first dunk (Dwight somehow got a 50, despite his dunk not standing out in any way from the others), but only Rudy Fernandez was openly mocked. His tribute to the deceased Spanish legend Fernando Martin was initially misunderstood and trivialized (the production team clearly knew about it, shouldn't the guys have been informed and asked to lay off the jokes at least during that moment?), then the graphic they put up about Martin obscured the first element of Rudy's attempt (the behind the back, off the backboard toss). Kevin Harlan tried to redeem the tribute and allow the others to save face, but by then they were just stepping on the dunk itself. Adding insult to injury, Kenny Smith immediately dismissed the dunk by saying "Rex Chapman did that...maybe in the early 90's, and did it better", which was both unfair as it was the only strongly negative comment following any of the 4 relatively equal first dunks, and untrue in that the dunks weren't identical (different takeoff side, toss, and finishes [1x basic one-hand, 1x two-hand reverse]) when Rex did what Kenny was referring to, and Rudy's effort was more difficult and the finish much more explosive than either of Chapman's, looking back at all 3.
In the second round, Rudy was again torn down completely before and throughout his misses, starting with Kenny's "I thought I had skinny legs...", to Reggie Miller's "he's going to throw his arm out...", back to Kenny and Kevin for "his hands are too small...he can't even hold the ball", to questioning his athleticism and stamina, having Pau Gasol rather than a Blazer pass to him (even though his chemistry/communication with Pau is probably much better after years together playing for Spain), suggesting he should put on his street clothes and give it up, etc.
When he finally did complete it on his first "extra" attempt, it would be easily the best dunk of the round, and because it was first, the others should have been scored much lower by comparison and it should have stood as such. Not surprisingly, it received a mediocre score which they justified by citing the misses. That reasoning would be understandable if not for the timed/limited attempt format, which wasn't violated, and the sharply contrasted response that Nate received in both receiving a high score and being glorified for his exceptional stamina when he completed a nice dunk after multiple misses in an earlier year. Both guys have everybody doubting them, but only the shorter dude is impressive when he overcomes those doubts?
JR Smith had to settle for a far lesser 2nd dunk than his original idea (albeit off an eventually decent from-the-crowd-toss by Sonny Weems), and the result was extremely underwhelming.
Dwight pulled out a more elaborate (but completely expected) version of the previous year's Superman schtick, and the exciting (and unexpected) arrival of the taller second basket set a promising scene, but he completely killed any excitement with the most rushed and basic dunk possible given the setup and circumstances. He ridiculously received another 50, this time essentially just for jumping high while wearing a cape.
Nate was the major disappointment though. The only way he could have saved the poor concept of the step-up dunk was to wear an adult-sized diaper, onesie, or footie pajamas for some added humor. When he'd already established that he can jump with anybody, there was no point in going backwards and pretending that he needed a boost. As it was, the dunk might have been the dumbest thing in the history of the contest - and yet immediately after leaving that steaming pile on the court (this is not a shot at his step-stool Wilson Chandler), possibly before he even knew his score, he left for the locker room to change into his "Krypto-Nate" getup. I don't think it was SWAG telling him to do that. Kenny praised the dunk for its "risk factor", but kudos to Reggie for telling the truth about the dunk's lameness and seeming to go off script by doubting whether Nate should believe he'd advanced.
The most shameful, undeserved, and obviously fixed final was locked into history. The win was really irrelevant at that point.
I wouldn't care that Rudy had been (mostly playfully) disrespected, if it had been directed at everyone present like most of the TNT crew's humor, but Kenny in particular was obviously in the bag for Dwight and Nate, leading a clear narrative, as he does in every rigged/semi-rigged dunk contest, and J.R. apparently had too much dunk cred for anyone to slag him for any reason other than his choice of Weems as a passer. They were really singling out just one guy for ridicule, and whether that was intentional/premeditated or not, it seemed very unprofessional, even by their enjoyably loose standards. That disrespect, along with getting the short end of the stick from the judges (his scores wouldn't have been innappropriate in a one-man dunk exhibition, but given the context of 50 point scores awarded to inferior dunks by an unmotivated competitor who knew he was advancing no matter what and performed like it, they're shameful) would have been bad enough, but he was also planning to pull out a Djalminha dunk in the final, (which would have temporarily satisfied many of the folks that complain about a lack of originality in the dunk contest). To miss that, all in the name of a contrived pseudo-comic-book-narrative, put the last of my childlike innocence regarding honest sporting competition on life support.
After years of disheartening officiating and assorted unprofessional behavior by representatives of the NBA and other leagues in big games/events, that trust is now completely gone. I'm glad to say however, that there was never a more freeing moment in my personal relationship with sports, than finally separating entertainment from honest competition. I realized that in professional sports especially, you can often pick a winner by counting the possible storylines for each side more reliably than by using careful analysis. It can be difficult in the regular season, so sometimes it's fun to reference tvtropes.org for the less obvious angles, but it's not too hard in big games/series, since sports narratives rely quite heavily on well-worn cliches. Try it sometime, it's a nice way to get some extra mental stimulation during events that you have no belief in the integrity of.
I also found it reassuring to remind myself that divining truth through the use of fictional concepts is essentially what most sportswriters do for a living. The very people whose job it is to make people want to take this stuff more seriously are the ones who either believe in it the least, or are the most completely deluded.Last edited by Streaky McFloorburn; 02-15-2013, 01:07 PM."The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism, by those who don't have it." - George Bernard ShawComment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
I think the Dwight Howard superman dunk is one of the most overrated "dunks" of all time... is it even a dunk?SI's Top Ten Contest Dunks:
10. J.R. Rider's Between-the-Legs
9. Dwight Howard's Backboard Tap Pass
8. Dee Brown's No Look
7. Jason Richardson's Bounce Between-the-legs Reverse
6. Michael Jordan Sideways Windmill
5. Vince Carter's cuff clockwise 360 windmill
4. Gerald Green's Cupcake
3. Dwight Howard's Superman
2. Vince Carter's Elbow
1. Michael Jordan's Free Throw
I mentioned this elsewhere, but I do not believe Carter's windmill should be outside the top two. I also think Richardson's off-the-glass between-the-legs should have at least taken the spot of the slam of his that's included.
Gerald Green's cupcake dunk and Dwight Howard's Superman slam both being ranked above Carter's cuffed, clockwise 360 windmill makes my brain explode.Comment
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Re: 2013 Dunk Contestees
I think the judges gave Green a 45 on the cupcake dunk, I was just watchingit yesterday on NBATV and forgot already. That Superman dunk was extremely lame to be honest. But I am glad that Blake Griffin over the car dunk isn't on that list. Lord knows that dunk was overrated.Comment
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