Blake Griffin has got me thinking…about dunks. It has been quite some time since a single player has electrified the NBA in the same manner that he has. Hell, he has made the Los Angeles Clippers relevant. So much so that statisticians were going out of their way to calculate the odds of the Clippers making the playoffs.
In the Western Conference there is no way that the Clippers can make the playoffs. I am sorry but that is simply the case. We all want to see amazing Griffin dunks in the playoffs but that is just not in the cards. At least not until he leaves the team or Donald Sterling decides to actually care about the team he owns. All of that is beside the point, however.
The precipice of this entire article is to judge two dunks. In the current generation of NBA fandom (people in their mid twenties and early thirties who grew up watching the sport in the 1990s and then became entranced by it, while also becoming jaded at the same time, who have seen just about every monumental play [via youtube mostly] that has taken the NBA to the levels that it has presently reached) there are two dunks, out of the many which will forever ring true.
Both of these dunks are in-game slams that shook the entire notion of dunking privilege. They must be in-game jams otherwise one would find themselves in the gray territory known as the Dunk Contest (with all due respect to Dee Brown).
The question is, which is better? Can that even be determined? What factors go into judging a dunk? Are they the same vague guidelines that are attached to NBA MVP balloting or are they a concrete set of rules on how viciously destructive a dunk can be to insulting the character of a grown man? Those issues are for the fan to define. The informed fan. We, the Beef, want you to determine these factors and comment (Who am I kidding? Hardly anyone reads us) on the two following dunks.
Ignore the second dunk on the breakaway. Yes, I know it is hard but for the purpose of this article just do it (no, Nike did not pay me for that phrasing).
Compare Griffin over Timofey Mozgov to this next dunk.
Seriously, are you kidding?! Vince Carter dunked over Frederic Weis who was 7’2″. He climbed him! Sure, the French favor that whole soccer thing, but I know there had to be some “boffs” rippling through the streets of Paris once they saw that.
Which is better? Obviously as Griffin grows into a veteran player in the league his dunk will be looked on with the same nostalgia. However, take them at face value. Take them as what they are. Carter dunked over a Frenchman and Griffin climbed a Russian. (Obviously the Euroleague has a long way to go.)
Leave a comment. Vote in the comments. (Believe me, I know we will not get any comments on this article. It is a lost cause.)
The Kobe Beef 