Was it just me, or was it awkward to watch the Sprite Slam Dunk competition during All-Star Weekend Saturday night in Phoenix? The whole "we've got a band" playing in the background and we'll announce the four contestants was a bit odd to me. The telling sign was the chummy and joking dance moves going on between Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson during the player intros. The look on JR Smith's face was priceless. It was one of "what the hell is going on here?" and "are these two dancing, smiling fools for real - I'm here to win this thing!!"However, this was not JR's night and despite any best efforts the NBA, David Stern and the judges already knew who would be in the finals: Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson. The NBA wants to make this contest a spectacle for the weekend so they "chose" their dream match up. If JR would have done a dunk that no one has ever seen or done before (which there aren't any), he would have had a chance.
It did set up nice for the NBA, given little Nate would dress in green as if he were krypto-Nate and could take out Superman, aka Dwight Howard. Now dunking on a 6'11" Howard was most impressive and showed out-of-this-world athletic ability, however in my mind should not have overshadowed Howard's "throw the ball of the side of the backboard, jump from outside the free throw lane and throw down a MONSTROUS dunk" dunk.
The dunk contest was pretty good overall and Dwight Howard dunking on a 11 or 11.5 foot hoop (with a terrible pass from injured Jameer Nelson) was alright. His decision to do a free throw line dunk should be second guessed. In the end, it was great to see Nate Robinson not take 15 tries to complete a dunk in the finals (like he did a few years back). He should be commended for such clean and tough dunks. At least now the dunk competition and All-Star weekend are exciting for the fans.
Perhaps LeBron James can dunk on Sean O'Connor in next year's dunk contest in Dallas... we shall see!
Check out the video here.
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