Dunking is art. And in my opinion it’s the most beautiful thing when you watch the game of basketball.
I remember when they first saw it in the movie “Semi-Pro” with Will Ferrell and they didn’t know if they should count it, that was funny.
But seriously I’ve been obsessed by it. I’ve been practicing doing better and better dunks for years. It’s my favorite thing in the world. When it comes to basketball, when it comes to the All Star, that’s all I’m waiting. Vince Carter is my favorite and realistically speaking he might not have the highest vertical leap and he might not have done the sickest dunks, but he has done the sickest dunks “in a game”. That’s what makes him number one.
Quickly, let’s see how it got evolved. Just be aware that I’m aware that there are soooo many NBA players that I’m not mentioning but I’m only putting the ones that were like the milestone in dunking. Ballers who revolutionized this art.
The first high flyer, the first creative mind to come up with crazy dunks, and true pioneer was Julius Erving aka Dr. J. He was the first one to dunk from the base line.
Now watching that clip I’m thinking he could’ve done it from the three point line cuz that’s how easy it looked like when he did it.
The next superstar that arrived on the scene was Dominique Wilkins aka “Human Highlight Film”. He had more “furious” dunks than the Doctor. He had more facial dunks than the doctor and he paved the way for the next generations.
Michael Jordan arrives on the scene. “Air Jordan”, “His Airness”, you name it.
His hang time was unbelievable. He presented the world something no one has seen. Being the complete and most mature player, the dunking and jumping ability made him a legend.
Next in line, comes my favorite player of all time, “Air Canada”, Mr. Vincent Carter. That’s his real name by the way. In February, 2000 he astonished the world. I remember the 4th dunk of the night when he put his elbow inside the rim, the whole arena went quite.
It was like, wait a minute, what a f*** just happened. No, he did not do that. And then on the replay they realized how sick the dunk was. Also, in the same year, in the Olympics in the summer, jumping over a 7 footer. Literally over his head. Vince today says that when he watches the dunk he can not believe that for a bit.
Well, today, in the time of this writing, we have players like Jason Richardson and Nate Robinson who have been spectacular. They have brought some new stuff to the table and have shown us that when it comes to dunking the sky is the limit.