Dunk Vs: Part 3

Kirk Snyder on Von Wafer vs Gerald Wallace on Bostjan Nachbar

Watch Kirk Snyder / Watch Gerald Wallace

     This dunk matchup is one of unheralded dunks by equally unheralded players. Through the use of YouTube, viewers can now watch dunks on demand, playing and replaying basketball's greatest slams. It also allows dunks to become sensationalized, and set aside from the game itself as a singular highlight, an entity unto itself. A dunk represents momentary triumph; the battle won, but not the war. Yet, on YouTube each play exists for the glorification of that singular moment.

     And this blog exists to glorify it even further. This matchup is "the best dunk you've never seen" both of these from obscure games with obscure dunkers and victims. Of this blog's four-man cast, Wallace is the best-known, but primarily he is known as an underrated player.

     Both dunks got a huge initial reaction from all the people lucky enough to actually be in the building to witness the night those dunks happened. Many people will have watched the games on TV that night and jumped out of their seats on this dunks, but the majority of the people out there (like you and I) sharing and enjoying this dunk are a result of the communicative power of the internet. Still, only a measley 40k people watched the Snyder dunk, while just 16k have viewed the Wallace dunk, but both are dunks that would probably have been forgotten in the pre-YouTube era.

     When you ask people the best dunk they've ever seen, it's an easy call to make Carter over Weis the throwaway #1. He goes over him. It's something that people will argue has never happened before or since, and certainly not in an NBA game. Yet, here we are. And this Dunk Vs series is about the best NBA dunk, not about bending the rules to include international competition. Sure, Von Wafer is no seven-footer, and Kirk Snyder is no Vince Carter, but the effect is the same; completely over a guy. Plus, it's at home, against the Lakers.

     If the Snyder dunk was right over a player, the Wallace dunk might be the best example of going through a player. This is one of the most explosive one-footed dunks I have ever seen and it always surprises me how fast and how high Wallace gets up. Gerald "Crash" Wallace is young in this clip, still with the Kings before becoming the face of the Bobcats and currently with Portland, making him even more of an unknown at the time of this dunk. The twist on the way down makes it almost seem like a 360 dunk, but that's just part of the dismount as he sticks the landing. Wallace is at home too and the crowd responds, and the announcer says the play was "boombastically dunkalicious" or something like that...

     It's a tough call, but I give the nod to Kirk Snyder over Von Wafer. The fact that he goes over the top of him makes this dunk unique. I'm sure that Wallace would have cleared Nachbar with the height he had on this dunk, if their bodies were angled differently. Wallace may have risen higher, and knocked his victim to the ground, but the sound of the rim snapping back on the Kirk Snyder dunk perfectly punctuates an NBA milestone; jumping directly over a player. In the future, there will be a top 10 "dunks over players," but for now Kirk Snyder is a pioneer. Vince Carter's lambasting of Weis may have been the Big Bang, but the Snyder dunk makes it a reality and hopefully Kobe, Melo, Blake, Durant, Bron and Wade, DeMar, Josh Smith and Rudy Gay are watching this right now saying "Ahhh... so it is possible."

Winner: Kirk Snyder on Von Wafer

Snyder

Wallace

Dunk VS: Part 2

LeBron James on Damon Jones vs LeBron James on James Johnson

Watch Damon Jones / Watch James Johnson

     Yes, yes. These are both LeBron dunks. And they're both on players who are totally unprepared to experience LeBron James' athletic shock and awe. LeBron, whether you like him or not, is the most athletically perfect player to ever play the game. He has produced many highlights, but these two capture different moments of his career and capture an otherwise unspectacular player into legendary "dunked on" status.

     The first LeBron dunk came early in his career. He was drafted in 2003, so he was still a new player in the League when he dunked on Damon Jones February 2, 2005. I'm throwing all these dates out here like tombstones, but trust me they're essential for building the mental timeline. At the time, Damon Jones was an ex-teammate of James. You can also see Shaq on the bench, not yet an ex-teammate of LeBron James. Shaq narrates this video and he describes what is a career moment for LeBron. In this dunk he is raw, talented, effortless, and graceful and Damon Jones just happened to photobomb.

     LeBron was young in that dunk. His career was on the rocks by the time the second dunk happened. Facing Chicago in the first round of the 2010 playoffs, it's LeBron's last stand with Cleveland, April 19, 2010. Shaq is in town to win a ring for the King. LeBron has to step up, and as far as statement dunks go, it doesn't get much bigger than this. Damnit, when I rewatch this I remember how unsure everybody was with the Cavs relationship with LeBron and there were already Free Agency rumblings. LeBron needed a championship, or he was leaving.

     Both of the dunks are spectacular because they show the almost-divine power of James at his finest, bearing down on a lesser opponent. And they could be anybody, there are many nameless, could-be and have-been victims of LeBron James in the NBA. Damon Jones and James Johnson are lucky enough to make history with him.

     The first dunk shows LeBron in full stride, wearing a mask for caution, and sprinting with the power of a train. He had come back quickly from a facial injury and the protective mask only made for more show, when Bron removed it to smile at the crowd. And to high-five Robert "Tractor" Traylor, (a more pear-shaped, and less eager Reggie Evans) (RIP "Tractor" who has since passed away). LeBron kind of stares at Damon, and Damon kind of holds his face either in shame or possibly real physical pain inflicted by LeBron James.

     The second dunk is LeBron at his unguardable, half-court iso self. Nobody could have guarded LeBron on that drive. He stared down James Johnson too and I remember this moment as I leaned forward off the couch and yelled "he's gonna do it! he's gonna do it! Ahhh!" Then he explodes to the rim after the slight stutter-step fake from the triple-threat position. Wow, that was with force and the roar became the inspiration for an article I wrote.

     The Cavs won the game against the Bulls at home, but when LeBron was younger, they lost 100-88. You can debate me on this, but I like LeBron's dunk against the Bulls better. It's the quick reflexes and the explosive athleticism of the 1 on 1 matchup that make it a better dunk. Plenty of players have caught other players in the open court, none maybe as big though as LeBron on Damon Jones, but the half-court play is something more rare. I think it's a harder dunk to pull off. And the announcer's call, and LeBron's reaction are better in the James Johnson video. James Johnson almost got there, but Jones could only cower in fear. LeBron wins either way, whether you make it easy for him or not.

Winner: LeBron on James Johnson

Bonus, photo!

Dunk Vs: Part 1

I will be doing daily blog entries until the NBA draft upon which day, next Thursday June 23rd, I will be finished my year-long Raptors Study; "What's wrong with the Raptors?" as well as how to fix the franchise. For now, get psyched for a weeks worth of Dunk-offs between some of the best dunks of our time. I've focused on the modern era, (ie since I started watching) so I don't think these are necessarily the best of all time, in a meaningful and league-defining way, just in a way that dunks are measured in a game-by-game basis. This means sheer awe, athletic ability, power, swagger, and airtime will all be factors. I have watched more dunks than you can imagine prepping this first blog series and have chosen matchups that work well against each other. Enjoy entry number 1, and stay tuned because things are heating up on 360special.

Kobe Bryant on Dwight Howard vs Dwyane Wade on Anderson Varejao

Watch Kobe's dunk / Watch Wade's dunk

     To begin with, both of these dunks are poster dunks. They are both composed by dynamic, slashing, celebrity wing guards dunking on bigger opponents. Both are with ferocity, and both dunks are meant to send a message.

     Kobe is welcoming a young Dwight Howard to the league on November 12, 2004. It was just Howard's sixth game in the NBA. As the number one pick in the draft, he was a target for dunkers across the League. Kobe probably surprised Dwight because Kobe was supposed to have a sore foot at the time and Dwight has since gone on to win the NBAs defensive player of the year award for the past three seasons beginning in 2008/09. This dunk shows Dwight's immaturity and is a rare "deer in the headlights" moment for his career.

     Exactly five years later, on November 12, 2009, Wade's dunk on Varejao came at the height of Wade's rivalry with James. When meeting up in their Cleveland vs Miami matchups they always tried to out-do each other. In this series of dunk attempts, James can't finish the dunk that would have swung momentum in Cleveland's favour, and Wade uses his deceptive cross-step foot plant to change direction and catch an unsuspecting Varejao in the air and unprepared.

     Who wins the game? While Kobe's dunk was a statement, his Lakers fell 122-113. Wade's dunk was a crowd-swayer and momentum changer yet his Heat lost 111-104. Neither player managed to win the game after their acrobatic heroics, and we remember with tragic fallacy.

     Wade is at home, Kobe is on the road for their masterpieces. This means the crowd reaction to Wade's jam was bigger, but the imbalance continues onto Youtube. Kobe's dunk has 1,070,453 views while Wade's has 2,268,520. But publicity isn't everything, let's talk about form.

     On Kobe's dunk he knocks Dwight but doesn't topple him. The interaction is closer to a mounting. The Wade dunk is the result of a full-court, transition break that sends Varejao sprawling with his legs over his head. Kobe maybe dunks with more force, but Wade takes the contact and forces the body of Varejao into the ground. Plus, Wade steps over him.

     I have to give the Wade dunk the slight edge. Although Dwight is a more high profile victim, he is not the defensive stopper he is today. And Varejao's feet touching the stanchion over his head while Wade steps over him and the crowd goes wild, lends a swagger to the dunk whereas Kobe's was nonchalant (although it produced the better still photo, see below). Besides, Dwight got his revenge.

Winner: Wade on Varejao 

NBA Finals Reflection

     This 2011 NBA finals is the ending of a cycle for me. Events have come full circle in more ways than one. When basketball wrestled a hold in my heart, the Lakers were the undisputed champs at the end of a dynasty. They were talented and enjoyable, but nobody cheers for goliath. When the Pistons collectively beat the Lakers, with the sum greater than their parts in the 2004 NBA finals, and I first bought SLAM magazine, my love of the game took off and has developed exponentially ever since. The Pistons won with heart, they were a solid team that took down a loved yet hated star duo in Shaq and Kobe. This years' Mavericks were similarly positioned with a team compiled from journeymen and veterans determined to win their first championship through teamwork. By knocking off the Miami Heat and LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, the Mavericks proved that talent wins games, but it takes something more to win the NBA championship.

     This season's championship also marks the full circle return to the 2006 finals when I loved Wade. He was my second favourite player in the NBA next to Shawn Marion at the time, who oddly enough met in this finals. Marion was a 20-10 guy, led the league in steals, tops in fantasy, intangibles off the board, had an exciting nickname "The Matrix," caught alley-oops from Steve Nash, and was underrated enough for it to be cool enough to like him. Wade, however, was the young Flash, backed up my a still-(more than)-serviceable Shaquille O'Neal. I cheered for the Heat to beat the Marion-less Mavericks in their original finals meeting in 2006, but look how things changed in 5 years. I used to loathe Dirk, for many reasons, but have very recently come to appreciate him. This Finals, I, like most of the world, seemed to believe Dirk was the lesser of two evils with the hatred surrounding LeBron James and the Heat, but what I didn't expect was to genuinely cheer for Dirk's jumpers to snap twine every time he kicked the leg on that goose-step fade. Dirk was different than he was in 2006, and virtually unguardable. In 2011 he showed poise, composure and clutch, going on scoring runs at the ends of games to secure wins, where choking was the expected norm in the past. Management and coaching put their faith in Dirk and he delivered time and time again. Dirk truly earned Finals MVP.

     Some people will say Mavs coach Rick Carlisle outcoached Heat bench boss Erik Spoelstra, which is true, but Spoelstra relied on a tried and true recipe of LeBron ball-domination which let everybody down. I would try to let Bron off easy, but he wasn't the proven team strategy, and devastating closing machine that made the Heat unbeatable against the Celtics and Bulls in late stretches of games. The media uproar has been cacophonous following the Heat defeat, and I won't dwell on LeBron's failure, but some things irk me. His "Chosen 1" persona led him to tweet following the game "The Greater Man upstairs knows when it's my time, right now isn't the time." LEBRON!, you have to make it your time. I said in my blog response to his initial "decision" last year,

"The court should be LeBron’s sanctuary, free from the media and the hate, where he can just play. “What should I do?” LeBron asks. He should rise to the occasion, play, win and let his game speak for itself. Titles and legacy are within his reach, but he must be clutch amid the pressure. His cage is not permanent, he can free himself if only he roars and really lets the league have it. Then he will be free."

     LeBron failed. And he can't accept criticism, only point fingers even if that means pointing them straight up. Using God as a crutch won't endear you to anybody, nor will the cocksure attitude of simultaneously re-affirming his uninterrupted, self-imposed destiny to win multiple titles and be called The Greatest Of All Time. LeBron averaged just 2.2 points in the 4th quarters of this series and clearly shrunk from the moment. Still, LeBron gets his way in the end; everybody will make this series and this season about him and what he did or didn't do, rather than give the Mavs the credit they deserve. It's just a better story.

     When Mark Jackson said at the mid-way point of the third quarter, "you look at the body language [of this Heat team] and it looks like a heavy weight champ that realizes he's held on too long, he's in trouble," I too realized that it was too late for a comeback, and a Mavs 2011 title was a reality. The Heat were against the ropes. The Heat were done. The only reason I would have wanted the Heat to win this series was so that we didn't all have to go through this, the questioning, the doubting, the LeBron having to awkwardly explain himself, but here we are. And it all kind of does feel like a rite of passage, a bump on the way to a dynasty which we can reluctantly agree with LeBron still seems probable, but it is one that will have to be rightly earned.

     Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion and Tyson Chandler, Jason Terry, JJ Barea, DeShawn Stevenson, Brian Cardinal and Peja Stojacovic all deserved this championship. None of the players on the Mavs roster had ever won a championship ring before. And Rick Carlisle and Mark Cuban deserved this championship. And Miami didn't.

     Miami will be back. They'll come knockin' next year (lockout pending), and the next year and the year after that. Isn't it fair that they had to wait a bit? The Mavs were an aging team, that came together and meshed at the right moment to provide titles to many players who deserved it and may never get this close to another opportunity. The Heat can lick their wounds, and restock their arsenal, but they remain the walking drama machine that they have made themselves into for the foreseeable future of professional basketball. 'Beat the Heat' will be a fun phase of the NBA. It will be an evil dynasty, periodically interrupted, with every other team striving to keep up with the Jones'. And it'll be alot of fun. See you there.

Ricky Rubio: Coming to Minnesota

The 2009 NBA draft featured gifted stars Blake Griffin, DeMar DeRozan, Stephen Curry, Tyreke Evans, Brandon Jennings, Taj Gibson and James Harden. It also featured a prodigy point guard Ricky Rubio, the enigma from Europe who, as legend had it, was the next great point guard. Subtly, he was also the next "great white hope," and he fit the mould of the white baller; slight build, not supremely athletic, with high basketball IQ, hair like Steve Nash, and the stereotyping could go on and on. Conjugating aside, Rubio was an exciting talent who many believed could be the 2nd pick in the draft (Blake Griffin was a concensus #1).

But on draft night his unproven game from a North American perspective made him slip to fifth pick in the draft. It wasn't like Rubio hadn't faced adequate competition, he was a prodigy. As a 14-year old playing in the professional ranks in Barcelona, in his native Spain, Rubio excited scouts with his play. Rubio also showed his game as the starting point guard for Spain in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, helping Spain to a silver medal while matching up with Jason Kidd and Chris Paul from the American squad. The professional pedigree that this engendered made him a ready-fit player for the NBA hardwood who had already been playing professional basketball for years, but some feared that the transition from Europe to the NBA is more difficult than the NCAA to NBA transition. The Timberwolves and questionable, punching-bag GM David Kahn, selected Ricky Rubio in a hair-brained scheme where they had the fourth and fifth picks in the draft and decided to take consecutive point guards. Johnny Flynn went fourth, and Rubio went fifth.

Kahn said he was planning on playing the two young guards alongside one-another. Rubio meanwhile was blindsided that the Wolves drafted him after refusing to a pre-draft workout in Minnesota. Kahn, either courageous or incorrigible, decided "what the hell, I'll draft him anyways." This began a Steve Francis-esque standoff where the NBA team drafting has the right to draft any player who enters his name into the NBA draft, and the young diva baller who believes they're bigger than the game, and bigger than the team and can demand front-office decisions. This eventually led to a mutual decision to stay independent together, the Wolves retaining Rubio's draft rights and Rubio maintaining his begrudging stance on not playing a role in a rebuilding Timberwolves franchise, while the Wolves occasionally shopped his contract and entertained offers but ultimately waited Rubio out. They could afford to wait.

This attitude made him none-too-popular with a North American NBA audience who were already xenophobic of Euro influence in the NBA. After all, it was around this time that Josh Childress moved to Greece rather than accept an NBA contract, and Brandon Jennings had played a season in Italy rather than attend an American college and was also a cornerstone of this 2009 draft.
 

But news recently broke on June 2nd, 2011 that Rubio had reached an agreement to a buy-out from his Barcelona team and would be playing in the NBA next season. If there is a season, pending the outcome of a financial dispute between the owners and players.

Will Rubio have the influence on the NBA that was expected by some in 2009, and throughout the years of hype leading up to that fateful draft night? There have been whispery rumours that he has been slowed by injury and his development has stalled out. His range on his shot was something he made up for with his pass-first mentality and showmanship, but it now looks like a glaring weakness. He's not getting any taller or any faster, and his slow improvement while in his Euro bubble has many observers doubting the potential of Rubio in an NBA landscape dotted with young, talented point guard talent. What remains to be seen is if the Timberwolves with a #2 draft pick this year, plus Kevin Love, Mike Beasley, Wes Johnson, and a motivated Ricky Rubio, can climb out of the NBA's bare bottom basement they've been in the past two years. The Wolves also have a couple of other players once thought to be legitimate prospects, now seeking refuge on the "we'll try anything" Timberwolves. If it works, The Wolves will be a surprise this year, but I can also see this ending poorly. I wish the best of luck to both Rubio and the people of Minnesota, and may all this drama come peacefully to an end. - D.G.

NBAdraft.net profile of Ricky Rubio

Kobe Bryant Watch 5: In pursuit of 28,596

Shaquille O'Neal announced his retirement Wednesday, June 1st. He ends his career with 28,596 points. Now his disciple, running mate, ex-lover and reconciled friend Kobe Bryant can catch Shaq's all-time tally and move into the top 5 all-time NBA scorers with a set goal in mind. 28,596 put it on your wall, put it on your fridge, paste it in front of your treadmill, sing it in the shower, whatever! just be conscious of it. With 728 more points, Kobe can catch Shaq next season in somewhere between 28 games (if he averages 26.0 ppg) and 33 games (if he averages just 22.0 ppg) . When Kobe passes Shaq, it will be the most meaningful of his all-time points milestones and a beacon on his continued climb up the all-time scorers list by settling into the top five. For Kobe to pass Jordan next year he would have to score 4424 points, an average of 54 ppg over 82 games (so let's focus on the Shaq goal for now...)

"Best of Frenemies"

Awesome Lakers Fan Interview

One of my favourite old clips.

A YouTube classic. 

I watched it again and again, now it's here to share. 

Love you Kob.