Nate ‘Kryptonate’ Robinson of the New York Knicks didn’t pull out any gimmicks or props this year on his way to a record third NBA Dunk Contest crown. Well, maybe I shouldn’t make that blanket statement as he did pull out some Dallas Cheerleaders to give him some cheer and support during any of his dunks. But to answer your next question, NO, he didn’t attempt to jump over any of them.
In fact the dunk contest in general was more than just a tad boring. We realize that in and of itself having Nate Robinson ever win a contest with his small stature of only 5’9″ tall, let alone three, is quite exciting. And if you’re a regular reader of The Hoop Docs you’ll remember we complained last year because it was too gimmicky and lacked real substance in the dunks. Between all the Superman or Kryptonate outfits last year the best dunk we saw was Nate jumping over Superman which was only really impressive because of Nate’s lack of height. So it seems a bit odd that we are knocking the contest this year for being too boring with no gimmicks or props. But it was. And the ‘twitter effect’ agreed with us. I’ve never seen so many similar tweets as I did last night on my twitter account calling out the contest as ‘boring’, ‘stupid’, ‘waste of time’, etc.
That’s not to say it was a complete waste. Nate Robinson’s contest winning dunk was pretty impressive when you watch it back in slo-mo (below). But what really impressed me was DeMar DeRozan’s second dunk where he had teammate Sonny Weems toss the ball off the side of the backboard rubber, caught it in mid-air, and not only dunked it but first windmilled it while hanging in the air. Overall though, after having seen DeMar’s High School dunk contest. I’d have to say I was thoroughly disappointed in him as well. 2010 NBA Dunk Contest…two thumbs down.
Check out Nate’s Contest Winning Dunk
If you don’t believe me however that the NBA Dunk Contest lacked a little substance. Check out this absolutely ridiculous dunk by Texas’ own ‘Air Up There’ that won the Friday night Sprite Slam Dunk Showdown. 360 degrees between the legs dunk? No wonder, Lebron James as a judge just got up and ran out onto the court. He may have even left the building on that one. No doubt, cause after seeing something like that. ‘It’s all over’.
