Fantasy Slam Dunk Contest - First Four Dunks

So as you may or may not have seen, the NBA's annual Slam Dunk Contest was held this Saturday. If you saw it, you are one of these two people...You are "Javale McGee should have won, his dunks were ridiculous every time and Blake's dunk over a car wasn't actually that tough," or you are "Blake jumped over a car. Period." I can respect both viewpoints, I really can. I'm in the first group's camp.
But when you take a step back and look at the dunk contest as a whole, you're saying to yourself, "You know, this is getting better, but what if we took it another step with all these props and amazing dunks?" That's where the League of Ordinary Gentlemen comes in. We're bringing you the Fantasy Slam Dunk Contest, we've switched up a few of the contestants because, let's face it, you'd rather have 3-time champ Nate-Rob and owner of "The Best Missed Dunk in NBA History," Shannon Brown, than Serge Ibaka and DeMar DeRozan. (Although they did really well in the real dunk contest)


Here are the rules really quick...Each dunker takes turns doing two dunks a piece in the first round. The scoring is out of 50. After the first round we cut to two dunkers for round two. During round two the dunkers do two more dunks and the fans do not get to text their vote in for Blake Griffin before he even dunks the ball. The League of Ordinary Gentlemen will be deciding the winner in a much more fair manner...by writing a cooler dunk for the person we want to win.

Let's get this started...after drawing straws to decide the dunking order, Nate Robinson is the first to step on the hardwood in a green and gold Boston Celtics jersey. Behind him is Larry Bird and Bill Russell rolling out all seventeen Celtic's championship trophies. The crowd looks around at each other, wondering what we're about to see in the first dunk. As the faceless court workers stack the championship trophies starting with one at the foul line, two closer to the hoop, three after that, then four, then five, then finally six closest to the basket, everyone starts to get what's going on. Nate Robinson picks up the basketball and the only championship trophy left on the cart and flashes the camera a smile. He runs from beyond half court and leaps right before foul line. He soars over each stack of championship trophies and dunks the ball full force into the basket. As he hangs onto the rim and dangles in the air he puts a big kiss on the championship trophy in his left hand and holds it up to the loud cheers of the Staples Center. After slow-mo replays, backwards replays, frame-by-frame replays, the judges hold up a final score of 48 that makes everyone wonder if these judges will even hand out one 50 tonight with that tough scoring rubric.


Reggie Miller: "That was just absurd, did you see the hang time on that? And the kiss at the end was just the right amount of flair."
Marv Albert: "Reggie, this is impossible, those trophies are about 3ft tall each. The 4th stack would be 2 feet taller than the rim, the 6th stack would be 18 feet tall!"
Reggie Miller: "Just don't tell little Nate Robinson that!"

The second dunker in our contest is Blake Griffin. We're waiting for him to step onto the court when suddenly all the lights in the Staples Center go out. A spotlight flips on in the center of the court and shrouds what seems to be a Zombie Steve Irwin in its brilliant light.
Steve Irwin declares that Bigfoot has been found, right here on Ground Zero of NBA All-Star Weeknd. The light flares wider to encompass a mound of rubble about 15 feet from the rim. A hairy creature is peering over the rocks. Steve Irwin goes on to say that, in his experience, the only way to non-violently lure such a beast from its hiding spot is to hurl a basketball near the mound. After hearing that, Baron Davis runs out and says, "I gotta see this!" He throws a perfect lob between the hoop and the mound of rubble and Blake Griffin pops his head up from the rubble, runs and jumps off the mound in a full on Sasquatch suit and alley-oop-between-the-legs dunks it, tearing off the rim. Insanity fills the crowd, screaming, looks of shock, horror, Craig Sager changes his suit, and Phil Jackson seems to show emotion for a split second. The judges grab at their score cards and convene, after a moment they hold up their scores for a final tally of 49.


Marv Albert: "Can you believe that, Reggie? I really thought Blake was Sasquatch for a second!"
Reggie Miller: "I thought it was my sister Cheryl! If that suit had cornrows it would look exactly like her!"
Marv Albert: "Right...and with that we'll take you right back into the action with our next contestant, Javale McGee!"

An angelic chorus fills the Staples Center and as it increases in volume the yells and clapping become quiet. Being lowered down from the rafters at a 45 degree angle to the floor is Javale McGee wearing fully animatronic angel wings. Doing his best Gabriel impression he touches down at midcourt and John Wall throws an all-white basketball to him from the judges table. The cables lift him up again as the wings continue to beat and he seems to levitate to the baseline corner of the basket. He detaches the minimal harnesses of the hanging wires but keeps the wings on. He runs towards the basket and throws the ball off the side of the backboard, grabs the ball in the air, does a 360 turn, and misses the dunk. As we look at the slow motion it seems like the wings hit the backboard as he's turning and throws him off. He does his best to shake it off and half walks/half glides over to the corner baseline again. He takes off again at the basket, bounces the ball off the side of the backboard, catches it in midair, turns 360 degrees and misses the dunk again. We see in the slow motion replay he changed his angle a little bit from the first dunk but the wings seem to hit the rim this time and change the angle of the dunk. Javale stands below the hoop, looking up at it, he looks down at the all-white ball. What happens next is up to you. If you choose option A, Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton run onto the court and shoot off Javale's wings like what happens to Ben Affleck in Dogma. If you choose option B he pulls them off like Jax pulls his bionic arms off in the second Mortal Kombat movie. After his wings come off in whatever fashion you chose, Javale goes back to the corner baseline for a third time. After a shoulder shrug of determination, he runs toward the hoop, bounces the ball off the side of the backboard, jumps, grabs the balls, does a 360, and slams the ball hard with both hands. As cheers erupt from the crowd and the judges grab for their scorecards, R.Kelly himself sings "I Believe I Can Fly" while standing on the judges table. The judges hold up their scorecards and Javale's final score is a 46.


Marv Albert: "Reggie, can you believe the originality and the theatrics of these dunks tonight?"
Reggie Miller: "What I can't believe is that someone would green light a second Mortal Kombat movie."
Marv Albert: "I actually thought Jackie Chan did just fine in that film. But let's move on to our fourth dunker, Shannon Brown!"

In what is beginning to be a theme the lights go out again and there's a lot of commotion coming from the court area. Over the quiet crowd a voice booms, "Ladies and Gentlemen, do not panic, some modifications must be made to the court for Shannon Brown's first dunk."

Marv Albert: "Reggie, do you know what's going on?"
Reggie Miller: "Absolutely not Marv, from the sounds of it they're waking Charles Barkley up after a night of bad luck and binge-drinking at the Rio."

Slowly the lights come back on and the court has been transformed into the Los Angeles Kings ice rink with Shannon Brown skating by the judges table. The basket is pressed up against the rink wall and looms over the ice. Shannon skates towards the basket from half...rink? The half line? From where half court would be and as he reaches the three point area bounces the ball off the ice, off the backboard, jumps off the ice in his skates and reverse tomahawks the ball down. The crowd erupts in a wave of cheering and the judges look impressed but confused how to score this. As they slowly raise their scorecards up, Shannon Brown's final score is revealed to be a 47.


Reggie Miller: "I think that was a poor choice of a dunk for this contest, but it seemed to confuse the judges enough to get a solid score."
Marv Albert: "Well, its obvious the difficulty level is really as high as it can get and the judges saw that."
Reggie Miller: "Like I've always said, ice skates don't belong in a dunk contest, Marv. I'm sticking to my guns on that one. I've said it once, I'll say it again."
Marv Albert: "And I won't fight you on that again, Reggie. Stay tuned for our dunkers' second go around after the break, folks!"

The second dunks of Round One will be up later today.

Don't Post In Anger: Lesson #1

I didn't plan on writing anything tonight. I was going to save up and throw down hard tomorrow or Monday. Then I saw the replay of Sasha Vujacic flagrantly fouling Goran Dragic. It reminded me of an acquaintance's Facebook post last year in the waning seconds of the Lakers final win against Orlando. It went something like this..."Adam Morrison has a championship ring and JJ Redick doesn't, now we see who the better player truly is." Needless to say, I wrote a book on the kids wall and when the dust settled we agreed to disagree that the kid was an idiot. Who was on the court throughout the series and even at the final second? Redick. The only good thing Morrison has done in the league is this.
The fact of the matter is, Vujacic and Dragic don't like each other. If you're new to this idea, there are plenty of sports media sources who have covered it in the last couple weeks to catch you up. Yahoo!, Sporting News, and even PTI.
It just so happens that we here at LOG have a man-crush on Dragic, and I, personally, hate Vujacic a whole big ol' bunch. With that in mind, I have to show all of you, our beloved readers, why you should love Dragic and hate Vujacic.
Much like the Redick/Morrison battle, Dragic actually plays for his team. Just using this series as a snapshot, Dragic played 95 minutes to Vujacic's 24. Also, parallel to the Redick/Morrison feud, Dragic has been better than Vujacic outside the NBA. Dragic made the Slovenian national team and Vujacic got cut. Last round, Dragic scored 23 points in a quarter to lead his team to a win against the Spurs. As for Vujacic, he was out the first two rounds with an ankle sprain and neither I, nor the Lakers missed him.
On Tuesday, we showed some clips of Goran Dragic being Goran Dragic. We know why we should like him. He's young, he's European, and he's the reason you think the six minute mark always comes too soon during Suns' games.
Why shouldn't you like Vujacic? Other than the ignorable fact that he lived with his parents the first two years he was in the NBA, Vujacic said this when asked about Dragic after game four:

"Oh, the kid on the other team? I don't think I'm fighting my countryman. I'm playing good defense. You got to exploit the weaknesses of your opponent and I think that if that's Nash, if that's Grant Hill, if that's Barbosa, whoever that is, you got to exploit their weaknesses. He's still young and he's learning so a little bit of pressure helps."

And if you haven't seen it yet, here's Vujacic's flagrant in game six:

Add that to Vujacic's old haircut, his shadyness, his breaking of the "no crying" rule, and the fact that Andrew Bynum and Carmelo Anthony don't like him and what do you get? Well...you get the thumbs down. Yes, Vujacic...the thumbs down. Which means you get treated on the court by the gladiator of my choice. And tonight, since I'm posting in anger, your executioner will be...Rafer Alston.

A Storm Approaches...

I find myself sitting in my living room, watching the last five minutes of game six in the Orlando and Boston series, and I hear a loud crash of thunder. Boston is leading 88-71 and in Columbus, Ohio, its been cloudless and eighty-five degrees all day. The thunder is just in my mind, but the storm it heralds will take over the sports world in the next two weeks.
In the first round, the Celtics ended the current Dwayne Wade era in Miami, then in the second round ended the current Lebron era in Cleveland, and now in the conference finals have ended the fluke that was the Orlando Magic of this year and last. This is the same Celtics team (or is it?) that went 14-11 in the two months leading up to the playoffs. In April they lost to the Rockets, Knicks, Wizards, Bulls, and Bucks. Now that game six is over though, this Boston team has rendered three premier basketball squads into mere footnotes of the late '00 decade.
Unfortunately for Lakers and Suns fans, this is the Celtics team we'll see in the NBA Finals, not the March and early April Celtics team. A healthy Celtics team who's starting five has never lost a series.
Last week I put fifty dollars on the Lakers beating that Celtics team in the finals, this week I'm sweating that fifty dollars as the Lakers barely won game five at home against the Suns. Bynum is pulling the all-too-familiar injury card, Fisher has less than five 10+ point games left in him and more than five games where he'll allow 10+ points. Phil is being shopped by lottery teams while he's still in the playoffs and he and Artest are playing twitter patty-cake.
While this isn't the best place I've put fifty dollars, I have hope. His name is Kobe Bryant. Kobe has scored 30 or more points in eight of his last nine games. In only two of those nine games has he had a negative point differential. He's averaging 28.9 points, 6.5 assists and 5.1 rebounds in these playoffs. Only two players averaged 25/5/5 in the regular season (Kobe and LBJ) and only three players averaged 20/5/5. (Throw in Tyreke Evans)
Kobe is playing like he knows what I know...if he wins two more rings he'll be a viable choice in the "Greatest of All-Time" argument. More importantly, Kobe is playing like he wants me to win fifty dollars. But as my mind drifts into celebration mode as I imagine how I would spend that freshly won fifty dollars, a thunderclap from the East snaps me out of it. Am I writing the Suns off? Yes. I don't believe they have a chance to win this series, even with their road performance in game five. I feel for Steve Nash, I want him to get a trip to the finals and even win a championship, but not this year. Kobe has to win another three in a row. Partly for his own sake, and partly to even a race for the most championships that started with the Lakers in 1949. Since then the Celtics have gained the lead and have 17. The Lakers have 15. With a second three-peat from Kobe and a fourth three-peat from Phil the score will even up at 17. Then Lebron and Wade's Bulls can win 11 straight and we'll have a three-way tie for first.

(If your first instinct was to add eleven to how many years you think Lebron and Wade have been in the league to see if it equals more than 20, I wasn't entirely joking.)
This storm I'm talking about, though, is not one of change. There isn't a torch being passed on. Its not a juggernaut bearing down on the league, extending its claim as a superlative. This storm is an evening process. The greatest are getting company, welcome or not. There will now be a discussion when it comes to the greatest player of all time, not just a name. The super power teams of the East and West will be equal again for the first time since 1961.
If you couldn't tell, I'm glad its coming. Probably not for the reason you think though. While I do dislike Michael Jordan fanboyism, I'm ready for an NBA that doesn't ask you to aim to be like just one player. An NBA that isn't headed towards all small forwards and power forwards who's favorite players growing up were Michael Jordan and Karl Malone. My favorite player was and is Reggie Miller. I loved watching Hakeem versus Ewing. The skill set those players had is not the popular skill set of today, though. I blame it on one slogan..."Be like Mike." Hopefully when Jordan is no longer the obvious G.O.A.T. a percentage of new players will aspire to be like Steve Nash, Andrew Bogut, or Brandon Jennings.

Goran Dragic

First ever to treat a player's life on every NBA team? I think so...

This guy is giving Darren Collison a run for the "best backup point guard in the league" trophy. (Aka the Not-Jordan-Farmar Award)

The patented "Dragonshake" -



And for those of you waiting for Ricky Rubio...