Trans. Sep 17 9:35 ET
As the summer wears on, with training camps and preseason play still off in (what feels like) the distant future, we turn our attention to the past. Join us as we while away a few late-summer moments recalling some of the most scintillating slams of yesteryear, the most thunderous throwdowns ever to sear themselves into our memories. This is Dunk History . Today, we ask some of our favorite dunk enthusiasts in various entertainment realms to share stories about their favorite throwdowns of yore. Please check the italicized short bios for more information about our contributors! Chris Gethard Chris Gethard is the host of Fusion's " The Chris Gethard Show ." He is a comedian, author and actor, and tweets @ChrisGethard . I know it’s completely cliché to write about The Dunk when asked to ponder a particular slam, but it’s impossible for me to write about any other. I’m a lifelong New York Knicks fan and was in middle school when it happened, so it’s therefore imprinted on my psyche. John Starks was not great. I love him — he is still my favorite player of all time — but he wasn’t great. We all know this. [ Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball ] Michael Jordan was great. Perhaps more than any other athlete, he represented greatness. His baseline is greatness. He doesn’t even have to realize it after he wakes up on any given morning; it’s just how it is for him. Greatness is the air he breathes. Not Starks. John Starks bagged groceries. John Starks floated in the purgatory that is the CBA. John Starks was a hothead, he was hard to understand, and he could and often would shoot you out of a game. But Starks’ lack of greatness is exactly why The Dunk is The Dunk and not a dunk, and that’s why I’ll always stand by it as one of the greatest moments of my formative years. I can never be and will never be Michael Jordan. I am not great, and I don’t live a life of greatness. In my chosen profession (comedian) I make a living and try to do interesting things, but I’m not a Jordan. It isn’t easy for me. I often wonder if I should quit. I’m far from a level where greatness is my baseline. Nothing is automatic for me. I’ll never feel like Jordan. But I can feel like Starks — I can be the guy who messes up, who maybe doesn’t belong, who feels like he has to fight just to prove he should be in the league. And like Starks, I can scrap and persevere, and if I do so, I may on occasion have the chance to achieve greatness. Because John Starks was never great. But on certain nights, he could be. And The Dunk was Starks at his greatest. The Dunk was never just a dunk. It was a regular guy on a grand stage, managing for just a fleeting fraction of a second to become so great that he managed to be greater than the greatest. Starks is me. Starks is you. Let’s go Knicks. Jerian Grant for president. Jensen Karp Jensen Karp owns Gallery1988 and is a comedy writer who has been paid to write jokes for things like the ESPYs, the VMAs and VH1's "Candidly Nicole." His book, "Kanye West Owes Me $300," comes out next year on Crown Books. My favorite dunk is from 1989, and it constantly gets overlooked when discussing the greatest jams of all time. When Tom Chambers of the Phoenix Suns appeared to actually fly , climb onto, and posterize Mark Jackson, then of the Knicks, it gave hope to white dudes everywhere. And it wasn’t just that he dunked on the man who may deserve to be dunked on , it’s that he used Jackson’s shoulder to bolster himself even higher and closer to the rim. It’s almost like in a video game, where you can jump by pressing X, then jump even higher by pressing the button again mid-air. Chambers scored 36 points that night and the Suns only won by two points, which technically means this fourth-quarter dunk was the game winner. Jackson, since he’s a predictable sort, has since argued it’s an offensive foul, but that’s probably just because he was embarrassed that you could actually perform the dunk on the 1991 Sega Genesis game "Lakers vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs." Either way, it’s the best and let’s make sure it’s included in the discussion, OK? Rhea Butcher Rhea Butcher is an Akron native and comedian based out of Los Angeles . She co-hosts the Put Your Hands Together show and podcast . I still remember to this day how I felt when the first WNBA game started. I had the ball and a Sheryl Swoopes jersey. The Cleveland Indians had just lost in the World Series to the Atlanta Braves, and my little sports heart was still broken. I was getting older (I'm 13 in April 1996) but I was still mesmerized by the fact that the WNBA was even happening. That brings us to Lisa Leslie's dunk. Lisa was one of the premiere players of the league, along with Swoopes and former Connecticut Huskie, Rebecca Lobo. Leslie had been known to dunk in high school and in college, so it was just a matter of time. It's not some crazy Tomahawk dunk from the foul line. It's a 1987 straight-up dunk. BUT it's a moment. A huge moment. It's a moment that says, "Hey, we're here whether you like it or not." Hannibal Buress Hannibal Buress is a stand-up comedian , writer, actor and the host of "Why? with Hannibal Buress" on Comedy Central. Favorite dunk of all time? There's so many to choose from. This came to mind right away. It's extremely aggressive. He steps over him and kinda pushes afterwards. There was some real anger there. He treated Ewing like a little dude. EDITOR'S NOTE: We can’t disagree with anything that Hannibal wrote, but it should be noted that he has acted as a poor basketball influence in the past: (To be fair, to us Bulls fans, sometimes Mike Dunleavy Jr. is all we have anymore.) John Moe John Moe is a radio host in St. Paul and author of the forthcoming parody book "The Deleted E-Mails of Hillary Clinton." A 22-year-old Shawn Kemp, built entirely out of missiles and rage, vaporized Alton Lister in the 1992 playoffs . Lister, age 83 at the time and dead, was a former Sonic, having been traded to the team in 1986 for beloved scarecrow-come-to-life Jack Sikma, a move Sonics fans hated because it was like trading your favorite child for Alton Lister. Two years of Lister frustration ensued before he was shipped to Golden State to suck real bad there. But all the sucking was forgotten — indeed, everything was forgotten; in fact, there stopped being anything to forget — when Kemp destroyed Alton Lister. Because of that dunk, there never was an Alton Lister. Nobody named Alton Lister existed. Letters can't even form the words "Alton Lister." It was quite an emphatic dunk. A back-up? Dunking on Rasho Nesterovic is sort of like scaling the highest peak in Delaware. Still, the Sonics faithful, we to whom faith has been largely a failed joke of an exercise, have this Kevin Durant dunk to see what might have been, what once was, and what could one day be. Erik Charles Nielsen Comedian and actor Erik Charles Nielsen played "Garrett" on " Community," and his stand-up has been seen on "Conan." Raised in Palm Bay, Fla., he now lives in Los Angeles with his wife. In his heart, his favorite dunk is secretly Darrell Armstrong’s 1996 Slam Dunk Contest layup . The first time Shaquille O’Neal broke an NBA backboard, I missed it. I had started watching basketball in the 1991-92 season, which was a bad year for the Orlando Magic, but excellent timing in terms of boosting my credibility as a fan. When Shaq got drafted, my classmates started paying a lot more attention to the sport, and while my familiarity with Anthony Bowie and Terry Catledge did little for me socially, I was always the kind of kid who liked feeling a little better informed than his peers. Anyway, I missed the game against the Suns in which it happened, and heard about it the next day in school. When I got home, it was all over the news. I had envisioned the familiar broken-glass scenario, with the hoop torn from its lo
The Scoop: None.
Sep 17 9:35 ET |
