This, though very cool, is not really a dunk:
Just thought I'd go on record.
« Right-Wing Talking Points | Main | Cirincione to Ploughshares »
Superman Dunk
20 Feb 2008 12:14 pm
Comments (58)
I couldn't believe that none of the announcers acknowledged that he hadn't dunked the ball.
The off the back of the backboard one rocked, but I thought Green should have gotten more props for the blow out the candle while not disturbing the cupcake one.
Hater.
Kidding. You're right, though the fact is that it would've been a dunk if the set up had been better - it was too high, and too far out.
If he'd done it again, it looks like he would've definitely pulled it off.
I, for one, and damn impressed.
You got it right, right.
It was very impressive, regardless of what you call it.
Agreed that it was not a dunk. DH's performance raises two other issues for me:
(1) Should we construe his failure to try to make change was a tacit admission that he cannot, in fact, make change; and
(2) How come he gets to steal Shaq's Superman pretensions? It seemed weird --- like a non-Julius Erving claiming to be the new Dr. J --- and lamely uncreative.
Agreed that it was not a dunk. DH's performance raises two other issues for me:
(1) Should we construe his failure to try to make change as a tacit admission that he cannot, in fact, make change; and
(2) How come he gets to steal Shaq's Superman pretensions? It seemed weird --- like a non-Julius Erving claiming to be the new Dr. J --- and lamely uncreative.
Eh. Fun dunk (or "dunk"), but not in the same realm as the VC's elbow dunk.
It's not a dunk but it is a THROW DOWN. Small distinction but I think its still in the same family as the slam dunk...
Ahem.
"a shot in basketball made by jumping high into the air and throwing the ball down through the basket"
That's exactly what he did, just from 2 feet away... but he definitely threw that ball down into the basket with authority.
He threw it down. Therefore, a dunk.
Not to take anything away from Howard, who was a deserving champion (but, yeah, where I'm from that's not a dunk). The one that I thought deserved more props was Green's shoeless dunk; I didn't catch it, but I've been told that Dr. J agreed with me, which I guess puts me in good company.
Yeah, I don't know why everyone has gone so bananas over that one. Hasn't Amare Stoudemire done the throw-it-downwards-through-the-hoop thing in games before?
Green's blow out the candle dunk was the coolest I've seen since Vince Carter's stunning 2000 performance (although I haven't seen all dunk contest dunks since then).
It doesn't count as a dunk because New Orleans has lots of black people.
Possibly helpful clarification: What Howard did there is dunking the ball. (By this logic, shouldn't some of Kareem's skyhooks also be dunks?) What he *didn't* do was slam dunk the ball. Outside of, like, AI on a fast break, most dunks we see in the game these days are slam dunks. So is it a dunk contest or a slam dunk contest?
"If it's not a dunk, however, then it's something much cooler and more difficult than a dunk, the likes of which we've never seen before."
Exactamundo.
-----
"How come he gets to steal Shaq's Superman pretensions?"
That was actually the crucial fact of all-star weekend. Shaquille is no longer in the building. Dwight-Monster is.
-----
Tangentially worth noting that the 4th quarter of the all-star game was some pretty good balling.
-----
"The one that I thought deserved more props was Green's shoeless dunk; I didn't catch it..."
Ummm...
-----
And can we please bring Mike Miller into Denver by Thursday? Pretty please?
I'll even give up Kleiza in the deal. Bubbachuck and Camby ain't getting any younger, y'know...
george tenet can NOT dunk. he is too small a man. (because it had to be said...that's why)
I agree with the "throw down" school elucidated above. Also, while it's called the "Slam Dunk Contest," if it were named for the real spirit of the thing, it would be called the "Slam Dunk and Showmanship Contest," and Howard just about broke the scale on the showmanship front (not just on this dunk but others as well - the bounce off the backboard one and the pin of the glass one were both pretty awesome too).
And while Green's candle dunk was pretty great, he basically got the same treatment Howard did last year with the sticker dunk. I'll call it a even on account of karma.
"Yeah, I don't know why everyone has gone so bananas over that one."
Because it was absolutely perfect. That's why.
Those who have never dunked cannot render judgement on whether not it was a dunk.
It was a dunk.
Petey -
I saw the shoeless dunk. I did not see, but was told about, Dr. J. apparently mentioning that he doesn't think most people realized how much added difficulty goes into that. Apologies if my syntax was unclear.
"Green's blow out the candle dunk was the coolest I've seen since Vince Carter's stunning 2000 performance"
The cupcake dunk was indeed pretty cool, but it was only the third coolest of this year's alone, behind both Howard's Superman dunk and his insane backboard tap dunk.
Dunk or no dunk, the Superman thing was awesome. I'm glad the judges didn't get all nit-picky about whether it was "really" a dunk.
I thought the slap-it-off-the-backboard-to-himself dunk was even better, though. Thing is, it was almost too awesome to appreciate in real time. I had to see the slow-mo replay to really see what he had done.
The Birthday Cake should have gotten a 50, but every dunk Howard did was a perfect 50. He won that thing easy.
"I did not see, but was told about, Dr. J. apparently mentioning that he doesn't think most people realized how much added difficulty goes into that."
The arena crowd actually booed Julius at that moment, as he was holding up the Dwight celebration by discoursing at length in a professorial manner.
I suppose this proves Clinton's point about the conservation of virtues -- big guys can't be great dunkers, and inspirational speakers can't get things done.
Am I missing something, or was there no actual basketball involved there? If not, I don't see how that's even remotely a dunk.
I didn't see the contest, but caught the highlights of the Superman dunk and Green's candle dunk. Both cool - but I liked Green's better.
not in the same realm as the VC's elbow dunk
I miss the days when VC could still dunk.
Al, you've got to see Howard's backboard-tap dunk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jXs7Jb0yB8
That was definitely the best non-VC dunk contest performance I've ever seen. I remember watching MJ and 'Nique when I was a kid, but I don't remember them well enough to say whether their entire performances were as good as VC and Howard.
Yeah, how do you get any traction on the slick floor with socks on? That was impressive.
There's an incisive debate at Freedarko about the political import (if any) of Gerald Green's removing his shoes. Personally I feel that Green just thought it would be neat.
Dwight Howard is the new Superman and Stan Van Gundy is the new Ron Jeremy.
He meant to throw it through. There are interviews where he said so. He said that only Superman could throw the ball through the hoop.
Of course it was a dunk. And it was fantastic. (The amazing part was there was some danger to it: if the ball doesn't go through, it's coming back off the rim so hard, it'd put a hole in his head.)
"It doesn't count as a dunk because New Orleans has lots of black people."
That's too funny.
anyways, it wasn't really a dunk, it was impressive though in real speed.
The no-shoes was a "dunker's dunk", have to have experience with dunking to understand the difficulty.
Personally I liked the off-the-back-of-the-backboard dunk the best, if you think about the agility and size required to do this one I'm not sure anyone else could pull it off.
VC....bleh! Jason Richardson put on better shows than VC did in the contests, though of course Carter leaping Weis is the best dunk of all time.
-- ah, what do you know, there's a ball after all. The thing was loading so slow before, and quality was so crappy, that I gave up before the replays. Funny how the ball isn't really visible before that. Or maybe my eyes are getting worse than I realize.
Anyway, hell, sure it's a dunk. David Thompson used to do pretty much the same thing -- taking off from around the free throw line -- in actual games when he played for NC State back in the 1970s.
Dwight Howard was Superman in part because of his love for song and dance "Crank That" by Soulja Boy.
Dwight Howard was Superman in part because of his love for the song and dance "Crank That" by Soulja Boy.
He threw the ball down. That makes it a dunk.
Dwight Howard was Superman in part because of his love for the song and dance "Crank That" by Soulja Boy.
The fact so nice you shared it twice!
David Thompson used to do pretty much the same thing -- taking off from around the free throw line -- in actual games when he played for NC State back in the 1970s.
Darrell Griffith, shorter than Thompson by a couple of inches, dunked it from around 9" inside the free throw line. I'd have to see footage of Thompson doing anything similar. Most of his dunks during games were on lobs from Monty Towe. Even Dr. J's fully-extended-like-a-crane dunks came from about a shoe-length inside the free throw line.
Howard's efforts are so amazing because of his height, bulk, coordination, and wit.
The whole "was it a dunk" controversy is idiotic. There are no "official" definitions of dunking. It's like porn: you know it when you see it.
Anyone else notice that the theme song Kenny was singing was actually from Indiana Jones?
Howard's dunks (or "dunks") looked better at first, and obviously whipped the crowd into a frenzy. That's why he won. The problem with Green's cupcake dunk was that it required slo-mo replay to be fully appreciated. At first it looked like he just jumped really high (as usual) and threw it down two-handed while maybe doing something to the cupcake. Only upon slo-mo reexamination could we see that he actually blew the candle out and dunked without displacing the cupcake. The judges had to judge the dunks in person and immediately, so Green was doomed.
Howard's Superman dunk looked like a true dunk at first because of the angle that TNT gave us as it unfolded. (I actually thought he DID really slam it through, because we viewed the dunk from behind at first.) In replay, we could see that Howard didn't make contact with the rim, and this could then be interpreted as a sign that he took off from too far away, or whatever. But the impact had already hit the crowd and the judges.
I don't think VC could've done the through-the-legs dunk without shoes, as Green did. Green's vertical is sick sick sick, and he's longer than VC.
"How come he gets to steal Shaq's Superman pretensions?"
If Shaq gets to adopt about a dozen different nicknames, other awesome players should be able try one of them on for size.
There is no doubt that DH meant to do that. A guy with that kind of hop and length could have got to the rim from 2/3 of the way to the free throw line if he wanted to.
I'd vote for Howard in just about any kind of dunk contest, but if he wants to show what big men can do with a dunk, he should try more stuff in the air (e.g. Jason Richardson's winning dunk from a few years ago) rather than just show how high he can reach.
It's both intentional and a dunk, the next evolutionary step in "throwing it down." How much higher do you need to jump to do that than for your run of the mill windmill - only Dwight knows for sure
Grant Hill did something similar early in the finals game against Kansas in 1991 - I always thought that deserved a simialr "was it a dunk" discussion, but sports talk radio was too young.
It's both intentional and a dunk, the next evolutionary step in "throwing it down." How much higher do you need to jump to do that than for your run of the mill windmill - only Dwight knows for sure
Grant Hill did something similar early in the finals game against Kansas in 1991 - I always thought that deserved a similar "was it a dunk" discussion, but sports talk radio was too young.
It's both intentional and a dunk, the next evolutionary step in "throwing it down." How much higher do you need to jump to do that than for your run of the mill windmill - only Dwight knows for sure
Grant Hill did something similar early in the finals game against Kansas in 1991 - I always thought that deserved a similar "was it a dunk" discussion, but sports talk radio was too young.
"Anyone else notice that the theme song Kenny was singing was actually from Indiana Jones?"
The first phrase was (loosely based on) the Superman theme, and then he concluded with a melody from the Indiana Jones theme. Both John Williams tunes, so maybe he gets a bit more partial-credit than if he had, say, launched into Star Trek.
That Soulja Boy song is really terrible. In ten years, will Howard really want it widely known that he did a great dunk based on his generation's Macarena?
Lame-ass pro hoops minstrelsy. Fuck the stuntaz-friendly Slam Dunk "contest."
For real.
chris, yes! Hurley like threw it behind Hill and he had to catch and throw while hanging in the air. Even Billy Packer went nuts, and they did compare it to David Thompson. Awesome!
A commenter above requested a comparison between the Howard-Green and the Michael Jordan - Dominique contests.
I think that's interesting.
On the one hand, we are in a totally new era of slam dunk contests, which probably began with Kobe Bryant's between-the-legs dunk. The dunkers are bigger and stronger, and the dunks are much more difficult. Michael Jordan never put his arm through the hoop like Vince Carter did in 2000, and Dominique never used a prop.
But there remains a certain elegance to the Jordan - Wilkins contests that I hope is not residual Nike branding. The way I see it, the Jordan - Wilkins contests existed in a Classical Era of Dunking, in which form, proportion, and balance are the key norms. The Classical Era should be appreciated as such.
We are currently in a Baroque Era of Dunking, in which increasingly ornate, costumed, and propped dunks are increasingly complex within the second or two the human dunker is in the air. They require multiple viewings, not to absorb the elegance of form, but to view each and every component.
I would argue that Josh Smith began this "baroque era" in 2005 with his vault over K-Mart and then the Wilkins jersey. Prior to that, other than Cedric Ceballos's blindfold, props were nary to be found.
"We are currently in a Baroque Era of Dunking, in which increasingly ornate, costumed, and propped dunks are increasingly complex within the second or two the human dunker is in the air. They require multiple viewings, not to absorb the elegance of form, but to view each and every component."
Indeed. None of Howard's dunks, this year or last, can be properly appreciated without slo-mo.
And the cupcake dunk was all about the slo-mo angle from behind the backboard where you can see him blow out the candle.
I see Gerald Green's dunk as more rococo than baroque.
So do you have League Pass yet, Al?
I've got Dallas at NO tonight set to record on my TiVo. Far more interesting than LA/Phoenix.
Nah - I'm still primarily a Nets fan rather than a Kidd fan. And I don't even have enough time to watch all the Nets games, much less a ton of League Pass games. I'm OK with Nets games, Knicks games, ESPN games, TNT games and NBATV games.
BTW, looks like the PHX-LA game was better than NO-Dal game, no? After one game, it doesn't look like Shaq improved the PHX defense nor did Kidd upgrade Dallas's PG play...
PHX-LA game was better than NO-Dal game.
Can Kobe's finger really be that messed up?
GS-BOS game is a nail-biter.
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
Comments closed March 05, 2008.
| 
Heads in the Sand
It depends how you define a dunk.
If it's not a dunk, however, then it's something much cooler and more difficult than a dunk, the likes of which we've never seen before.
Posted by right | February 20, 2008 12:26 PM