Slam Dunk

It is all surrounded by The Dunk. With a single long arm and hand trying to control that orange ball with a twist or a flip or a dump that, if done right with a fast mood, it’s the best dunk or whip in sports. It’s a leap into the air at a certain distance so the flying arm can direct the wide hand temporarily hanging with the ball, and feet kicking in the air, where it wants that ball to tear up that net, guiding that basketball though bigger than any hand of any leaping player, in the curve of its hand and that signals that BAMB! a star basketball player gets three points with glory as if he or she had won the Super Bowl. 

Called the NBA’s greatest moment and action, it can screw up a good player’s effort to pull out a double basket, losing part of what the player thought was a sure thing. But the real aim would be to leap with that long arm bent at the beginning of the hand, until the sun shines through and the shouting of the basket shakes the place. It can be called jam, yam, slam, poster, stuff, hammer, and probably a row of words that we don’t need to hear. Whatever it takes, the player needs to get that ball up higher than the net, and a mighty powerful hand dumps it into the net and cheers arrive with glory.

For our Grizzlies, a highlight was when Ja Morant dunked a dunk over Victor Wembanyama, who is the newest tall guy on the floor, in fact the first draw on the draft earlier this year.

Once the ball has been stuck over the basket rim, then the shooter would try to put the ball over the rim and let it hang there on the rim, till, I’m sure, his hands were worn out from holding up the Dunker. It’s kind of a glory move when it works.

Oh basketball. It’s amazing how that sport has crept up to the top of the ladder. From the early days when it was all white guys, until the beginning or entry of the first black basketball players - mostly giant tall men, who had to sit at the back of the bus, on those early days.

To do your first dunk is like becoming some super soccer kick that eliminates the goalie, or someone’s first end to end victory run into good ole American football, be it college or professional. It’s like soaring into the skies with the sun smiling. It’s one of those things that changes a player’s approach to his sport.  There is thrill in the first dunk. It’s like entering a whole league of fancy players. Apparently, there is a small draw back. The wrist can get messed up and lose its dunking power. If a player doesn’t know the skills or the method, it could get painful.

If they chose to dunk, they could really doom themselves for future attempts to be a dunk dumper. It’s tough on the shoulders and the arms, much less the hand that is doing the dumping. I watched the amazing new player Giannis Antetokounmpo, tall as a giant building almost as tall as he is. He does it all with grace and without a grind.

In the New York Times there was a huge set of pages to turn on those of us who hadn’t gotten the point of the Dunk. Here in Memphis, we have Ja Morant, a small guy, fast as they come, who can twist and flip and toss anything into that net as he moves his arm like a baseball bat with a basketball in his hand - until he dumps it into the basket. It’s only two points. But two points is two points and if you can do it over and over, that totals a hefty score for his team. The negatives are damage to the arm or hand as they hit the metal frame holding the net into which the ball must pass, with someone waiting underneath, maybe two or three “someone’s” trying to grab the ball as it flops down out of the net so someone else must make it move on to another spot.

The thrill is to take cover and courage over what is going on. When maybe an unknown leaps high enough to get that arm with folded hand into a position that a dunk is coming down out of the air in a second, that’s what drives everyone crazy - no matter the team so that they leap up out of their seats to yell and screen. Often, we have non-players but a team of guys who have mastered the dumps do a halftime set of flips and flops and twists and so forth leaping off a jump box thing that gives an umph to the guy leaping, but it’s not the same thing as the real Dump.

Do we know who started the Dunk in 1944 when Bob “Foothills” Kurland dunked by accident, and he introduced it to basketball styles. In fact, women were dunking in their college basketball teams. He also was first player to win Olympic Gold Medals for basketball. Today, Zion Williamson was skilled at the Dunk, although about 56 years older than Zion was Earl Francis Lloyd (1928-2015) who was both player and coach, and the first African American player to play a game in the NBA. He died in Crossville Tn 2015. and was only 6’6 and played for the Washington Capitals.

Our first super dunker has been Morant. Sadly, he over dunked and now he is sitting wounded for the rest of the season He is light weight, he can move and twist that small body of his and shoot from all sorts of distances. He is just a darn good basketball star who has brought so much fame and fun to our Grizzlies. He sorts of overkilled some things trying to show off his powers and pistols, which got him in trouble, and he couldn’t play for 25 games, which hurts a team like ours. Now he is wounded for the rest of the season. But he is young, and he loves the sport, as does his father.

There is no tiptoe through the tulips in the world of basketball.  It’s constant throwing oneself on the floor, or into a crowd, and somehow each job is to get that basketball into the teams’ hands so they can dash down the court and dump it into a basket that could bring victory or defeat. The Dunkers are the superstars at getting points. They can leap high off the ground with ball in fist or hand and get it out of its location and slam it in the opened hole with the metal rim that any basket would have to pass through in order to bring points, glory or victory into the hands of those on the run, with the idea of dunking the ball into their dunk hand  and gain points that could lead to victory. It’s an amazing challenge. Only the best of the best can do it.

~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com