We all remember the footage of Lisa Leslie throwing down the first dunk in WNBA history, Michelle Snow jamming it at Tennessee, then Candace Parker winning the McDonald’s Dunk Contest in 2004 over both JR and Josh Smith. Then of course everyone was amazed by current Baylor stand-out Brittney Griner dunking a basketball as early as 10th grade in Houston, Texas.
Of course, the most notable female dunker prior to the ones listed above was the 6‘7 Georgeann Wells at West Virginia in 1984, who is credited as being the first female to dunk a ball in an NCAA game period. She was so far ahead of her time that no female even got high enough to dunk for another 10 years in women’s basketball.
But as training methods improve and players pick up the game at an much earlier age in recent times, it was inevitable that more and more females are attempting to join their male counterparts by jamming the rock in high school games.
The next high profile female star to flush it may be sophomore Diamond DeShields of Georgia, who has already thrown it down in practice but never in a game. If the last name sounds familiar to baseball fans, it should, since Diamond is the daughter of 16 year MLB veteran Delino DeShields and is actually coached by former Pacers and Raptors star Antonio Davis on her AAU team, the 13U Georgia Ice. Other famous daughters on the Ice include siblings of Ken Griffey Jr, former NBA Slam Dunk Champion Dee Brown, and the coach’s daughter Kaela Davis.
In only the 10th grade, Diamond has already outgrown her famous father to measure a cool 6 feet and has developed into quite the ballplayer who is capable of tip ins and alley-oops but is dead set on dunking in a sanctioned game. We’ll be sure to keep tabs on Diamond.
Check out Diamond DeShields attempting to dunk in practice:
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen also provides content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
