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Dwight Howard may really be Superman, and even if he isn't, he at least knows the keys to winning a Slam Dunk Competition and he showed them last night in New Orleans.
Last night was the most innovative and creative dunk contest of recent memory. Not since 2000 when Vince Carter absolutely rocked the house in Oakland after the dunk contest had been on hiatus for a couple of years has the contest been as fun.
Gerald Green and Jamario Moon did some nice dunks while Rudy Gay came in last despite his YouTube plea for dunk ideas. Green's "birthday cake" dunk, where he sat a birthday cupcake on the back of the rim, lit a candle, and proceeded to blow out the candle in the midst of his dunk, and his between-the-legs, windmill without any shoes on were both impressive.
Moon's pair of dunks were nice and possibly worthy of making it to the final round. After his first dunk where he lobbed the ball into the air, caught it off the bounce and did a one-handed 360 that got him good scores, Moon was in contention, but he killed himself on the second dunk.
The Slam Dunk Competition is about building anticipation, getting the crowd involved, and finally, about performing. Moon messed up on his second dunk by building too much anticipation and the inevitable let down of the crowd and judges killed his score. He taped a line about a foot past the free throw stripe making it appear as if he was going to jump from the piece of tape for his dunk ala Dr. J's free throw stripe dunk.
However, it looked like Moon used it to know where to take his final bound before taking off for his dunk, which was similar in distance to Jordan's attempt at the free throw line dunk. Moon received a bounce from a teammate and then threw it down left-handed. The dunk, of itself, was spectacular and difficult due to all the different aspects of it, but it didn't receive great scores because everyone thought he was going to take off from the line he taped down.
While Moon's anticipatory let downs hurt his scores, Dwight Howard scores were the exact opposite. They grew from the anticipation. His dunks were original, creative, and just plain ridiculous!
For his first dunk, Howard can thank his freakishly long wingspan. He actually missed his first attempt, and when all of the NBA players in attendance saw what he was trying, they rose to their feet in anticipation. He threw the ball off of the back of the backboard and dunked it on the other side similar to what Andre Iguodala did in 2006 (the real champion that year).
However, Iguodala was actually on the front side when he dunked it, whereas Howard's head and body (besides his left arm) were still behind the backboard when he threw it down with his left arm.
The anticipation grew even larger for Dwight's second dunk. First he placed a piece of tape in front of the free throw line and then...he donned a Superman costume (and just where in the world do you find something big enough to fit a 6-foot-11, 270 pound beast). Damon Jones and Dikembe Mutumbo, as well as several other stars and the crowd, jumped to their feet when Howard began taking off his uniform and displayed the Man of Steel suit.
He then proceeded to jump from a crazy distance while jumping crazy high and produced the next great poster...
It does have to be said that Howard didn't dunk the ball per se, but like Magic Johnson said during the broadcast, "He didn't just dunk it; he threw it through! [...] He was up so high, he threw it through! Oh my goodness!"
The first two perfect score dunks could have been enough by themselves, but in the final round, Dwight did something else that has never been seen by hitting the ball off the backboard while in mid air and then throwing it down with the opposite hand. If the final round would have been judged by the five panel judges, this would have been his third perfect dunk.
For his final dunk, Howard was again creative by putting up a mini-goal to hold the basketball where he grabbed it, did a windmill, and dunked it home to finish off the competition. It was the worst (and I hate to use that word when all of his dunks were purely incredible) of his four dunks, but plenty enough to win the fans' vote.
Another impressive factor of Dwight's night is that the NBA nixed other ideas that Howard had including raising the rim to 12 feet to show his jumping ability is just as good as shorter players in the competition and playing music (likely "Crank Dat Soldja Boy") prior to his Superman dunk to get the crowd pumped up.
Regardless, the 22-year old phenom became the first center and the tallest player to win the Slam Dunk Contest and, along with Green, brought back some life and excitement to the competition.
Shotgun Spratling
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