[2001] Bizarre dunk contest moment: A year after Vince Carter’s legendary performance, Baron Davis needs to score a 45 on his last dunk to be the next champ. He visibly completely cheats on “blindfold” dunk, but somehow comes unimaginably short
Baron Davis was one of the most entertaining players and dunkers of his era.
Baron Davis and Steve Francis are 2 of the most exciting dunkers in the early 2000s
J-Rich and Desmond Mason erasure
I purposely just mentioned Steve Francis as he was comparable to Baron Davis in terms of size.
If I added J-Rich and Mason, I would also need to add Vince, TMac, Kobe, Iggy, JR Smith, Gerald Wallace, Gerald Green. Just too many to mention.
J-Rich under legs dunks are so underrated
They were straight up street hoopers
Francis especially, and in the worst possible way. Watching him play was absolutely painful to watch- 4 guys watching him dribble for 15 seconds, waiting for a kickout.
Don’t forget about Mike Bibby.
Gimme that dunk over Kirilenko in the playoffs, that was a classic
Antwan Jamison as well.
Surprised someone downvoted you
Antawn was fun as hell to watch for a few years there
my literal first basketball memory is of him yamming on some big white guy in the old Charlotte Coliseum
This is the type of entertainment we are missing from the dunk contest. Unfortunately, players don’t want to embarrass themselves on TV
Idk man, this year’s dunk contest had a few guy that were willing to embarrass themselves
Hayes “performance” will never be forgotten.
Shoutout to Jase Richardson. He may never play any other game in his career and I’ll always remember him 😂
I mean can you blame them. Imagine if LeBron tries to have some fun and do this and now a GIF of him blindfolded and missing a dunk is posted every time he misses a shot.
The point being that NBA stars should have the self confidence to not give a fuck about randoms posting internet memes
Still more entertaining than the last few dunk contests.
Dunk contest has been shit for a while but somehow we even reached Mac Mcclung level shit
Still better than Darrel Armstrongs layup in a dunk contest
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZCJiVZdC28U
But…. Why?
There was a moment in the mid-‘90s where dunk contests had “routines”, like a figure skating competition, so in the first round the ‘96 contest, each dunking had 90-seconds to complete at least three dunks.
In Darrell Armstrong’s case, his best work was completed with sprinting run-ups from half-court (made for some entertaining open floor slams when he’d pick people’s pockets in real games).
However, in the contest, he had a couple of his dunks rim out and by the end of his 90-second sprint session, he’d only completed one dunk and the writing was on the wall. So on his last run-up, he knew he was probably already eliminated and when he lost his grip on the ball on his way up, he just flicked the ball at the rim anyway as time expired.
I always thought Darrell got a raw deal on this one. I remember Kenny Smith rolling this moment out on a “Worst Dunk Contest Dunks” segment in the mid-2000s and people have just run with it ever since without knowing the context.
Armstrong competed at a time where players had to perform 90-second “routines” a la figure skating. Kind of like Steve Francis drawing a Terence Stansbury dunk during The Wheel era, the 90-second routine was a worst-case scenario for a guy like Armstrong because most of his dunks required a half-court sprint before takeoff. So by the final seconds of his routine, he was pretty much gassed.
To add to it, he’d only completed one dunk up to that point so he knew he wasn’t advancing. And so when he bobbled his attempt to cuff the ball before takeoff, he just flung it up there because time had expired and his round was over.
When his dunks were dropping, Armstrong is one of my all-time little guy dunk contest participants.
This will never not be hilarious
This and the Michael Finley failed Somersault dunk attempt lmfao hey at least these dudes tried
Lmfao
I figured that he tried to cheat at it and still couldn’t see. But for some reason they counted it as an attempted dunk even though he was nowhere near the basket. I guess the act of throwing the ball downward counted or something. Definitely a bizarre fail.
This is awesome
bruh 😀
Lamar Ball probably claiming that was him.
Dunk contests were always kinda bs anyway
I remember this moment.
Baron Davis could absolutely see. He clearly had a visible hole in his headband and he oversold it, “accidentally” running toward the wrong basket and almost running into the crowd before David Wesley corrected him.
The airball dunk was a part of the schtick, where he was trying to play up the idea that he really couldn’t see, except it backfired when those in charge of the rules took things more seriously than he was expecting and ruled it an actual attempt.
As an aside, in the original commentary Kenny Smith exclaims, “I can see your HOLE, big guy!”
Kanye East
wtf is up with these videos on Reddit now going black?
No one could party like Ceballos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUqtf4_Xq0g
Could easily get hurt on that