Basketball purists are up in arms, claiming James Naismith turned over in his grave when Dwight Howard made a carnival act out of the sport in the NBA’s Slam Dunk competition in New Orleans last weekend.
But don’t blame Howard for his creativity. Nor the NBA for giving the fans what they want. What keeps the NBA a high-profile league in media is its entertainment value and there couldn’t be a more crowd-pleasing show than what Howard performed in capturing the Slam Dunk title.
Basketball wouldn’t be as popular as it is today if not for stars like Howard. For as long as fans are treated to what they enjoy, basketball will survive the competition of other forms of entertainment and other sports, too.
Besides, the annual NBA All-Star Weekend isn’t about the players. It’s about the fans. The mid-season break is when the league pays tribute to the fans by making them the focus of the activities leading to the All-Star Game.
When Naismith invented basketball at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891, he never imagined the game would someday captivate a world-wide audience. Because basketball is media-friendly, it wasn’t difficult to sell the sport to a public that has learned to appreciate the finer points of the game.
Howard, 22, is what the game needs to keep it growing. He’s young, talented, disciplined and accommodating. Two years ago, Howard was in Manila with his parents and won the hearts of Filipino fans with his affable personality. He signed autographs, posed for pictures and even played a fun game with sportswriters and celebrities.
In Macau last October, he spent over an hour being interviewed by a group of Filipino writers and never rushed.
Howard could actually afford to be snobbish and get away with it because of his glowing achievements on the court. In his fifth pro season, he’s averaging close to 22 points and 14.5 rebounds a game, leading Orlando to third place overall in the East. He’s fresh from signing a five-year $80-million contract extension and he’s already in the record books as the youngest player in NBA history to average a double-double in a season, to total 3,000 career rebounds and to grab 20 boards in a game.
Last summer, Howard shot a phenomenal .778 from the floor as the US posted a 9-0 mark in the Tournament of the Americas in Las Vegas to qualify for the Beijing Olympics. In the finals, he hit 7-of-7 from the field and scored 20 points in the US win over reigning Olympic champion Argentina.
By the way, Howard became a first-time father last November when his girlfriend Royce Reed, a former Magic team dancer, gave birth to their son Braylon at the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies in Orlando.
In New Orleans, Howard was the man of the moment. He unraveled four tricks to win the Slam Dunk crown, hands-down. First, he stood behind the backboard, bounced the ball on the reverse side of the glass then grabbed it off the ricochet for a dunk with the left hand and half his body outside the playing floor. Second, he wore a Superman shirt and cape to take off from beyond the free throw line, cup the ball – lobbed over the top of the board by Orlando teammate Jameer Nelson from the stands – with one hand at the peak of his jump and throw it down. Then, he bounced the ball off the floor, got it on the rebound, tapped it on the glass with the left hand and snatched it with the right for a dunk – all in one flying motion. Finally, he taped a miniature Orlando basketball board set on the right side of the glass and balanced a ball on the little rim then raced from right quartercourt to scoop the ball from its perch and dunk it inside the real hoop, windmill-style.
In all, Howard had to retake only his first and last dunks, once each.
Defending champion Gerald Green desperately tried to retain his crown but just couldn’t match Howard’s acrobatics. He, too, was creative. In his first dunk, Minnesota teammate Rashad McCants placed a cupcake with one lit candle on the back rim then Green went up, blew out the candle and stuffed the ball in with the left hand. In his second, McCants sat on the top rung of a ladder holding up a ball then tossed it high as Green came running up the floor to grab and dunk it. In his last two dunks, Green reprised Kobe Bryant’s one-handed jam after passing the ball between-the-legs in midair. What made the final dunk remarkable was Green did it without sneakers and only his socks on.
Howard didn’t just dunk away with the title but also proved that not all big men are lumbering giants. None of the previous Slam Dunk champions Michael Jordan, Spud Webb, Dominique Wilkins, Harold Miner, Cedric Ceballos, Dee Brown, Vince Carter, Larry Nance, Brent Barry, Nate Robinson, Josh Smith, Fred Jones, Jason Richardson, Kenny Walker, Desmond Mason, Isiah Rider, Bryant and Green was a center so Howard’s feat was a first since the NBA introduced the contest in 1984.
In the PBA All-Star Weekend on April 25-27 in Bacolod, Niño Cañaleta is expected to once more defend his Slam Dunk crown against the likes of high-flying Cyrus Baguio and Kelly Williams. Will KG take the art of dunking to the next level like Howard did in New Orleans?
