The Dunk Contest Is Back

You may or may not know, but this past weekend was the Black Super Bowl (also known as the NBA All-Star game). Last year, it was in Vegas, but this year it was in New Orleans and decidedly less crazy (how many times have I linked to that post?). While the all-star game itself happens on Sunday night, the other events happen on Friday and Saturday. Now,I know not all of you are NBA freaks, so most of you probably missed most of it, so in today's post I want to show you some of the cool stuff from this weekend.

Two of the coolest basketball memories I have are the first time watching the replays of Jordan's dunk contest battles and watching the 1996 dunk contest in person. Sadly, interest (and talent and watchability of) the dunk contest has wained lately. That all changed this year. There were some really, really good dunks in this contest - good enough that the people at the party I was at, stopped to watch the dunks, and I can't tell you the last time that happened.

Anyway, I've embedded some of the best dunks below. They are really good.

The first awesome dunk of the night was by Dwight Howard (there are a few of these coming). He throws an alley-oop off the back of the backboard, does a windmill while coming from behind the glass and dunks it.



Last year's champ Gerald Green blew out a candle on the back of the rim while dunking. He only got a 44 for this dunk, but he should have gotten a 50. This was probably the coolest dunk of the night but it was really hard to see how cool it was - the replays show it though.



To end the second round, Dwight Howard donned a Superman cape and literally threw the ball through the hoop. He didn't dunk it, but it was awesome anyway.



The first dunk of the finals was by Gerald Green who caught an alley-oop and went between his legs. This is a hard dunk when you have the ball the entire time, let alone off a pass.



Green followed that dunk up with the same dunk, only he did it barefoot. It didn't matter thought because on the second dunk of the finals was by Dwight Howard bounced the ball to himself, tapped it off the backboard with his left hand and dunked it with his right. Kenny Smith describes Howard as a video game, and after seeing this, I'm not sure how you could disagree.



It was over at that point.

In any case, that Superman dunk throw through the basket by Dwight Howard was one of the coolest things I've ever seen (even if it wasn't a dunk). I don't know if he'll come back next year to defend his title, but I'm not sure how he can top his performance. That was the hardest I've ever seen a ball dunked and every time he dunked our party stopped. The feeling I got watching him reminded me of the first time one of my friends dunked in a game - it was nutso. Honestly, when I have a place to hang posters, this pic will be a poster I own.

The dunk contest is back...

Have a good week.