Dunk Contest

Kings, Queens, and In Betweens, I present the 2023 1C2RJC (One Court to Rule Jamal Crawford [next year we’ve gotta parse that name down a little]) Dunk Contest

The contestants, as you well know by now, are…

·         Jalen Duren – He’s 19 years old (fucking come on!), averaging a ludicrous 26 fppg, and crushing the hearts of Hornets fans everywhere. He’ll be skipping out on the real-life All-Star festivities due to injury management, but thanks to the deep pockets of our league office he’s still very much participating in our dunk contest. Big men tend to fare poorly in dunk contests, but Duren’s youth and ability to bang his shins on the rim should provide plenty of fireworks.

·         Shaedon Sharpe – Also 19 (and also genuinely scary), Sharpe pussed out of the real dunk contest. But with the help of some of our league’s more shadowy persuasive talents, Sharpe is not only participating in our contest, he’s the odds-on favorite. 6’6, can actually fly, and with eyes undimmed by the nihilistic acceptance that strikes you in your late 20s, Sharpe stands a real chance of revitalizing the genre of dunking.

·         Kenyon Martin Jr – Our real-life representative and old man correspondent (22 yo) Kmart Jr’s looking to honor his father (who is very much still alive). It isn’t naivete that fuels Martin Jr like the above contestants, it’s the legacy of his name. He’s been trying to do that all year down in Houston, but your average fan probably hasn’t watched a single Rockets game this season. A famous name with an underdog’s odds and a shot at the spotlight. Watch out for Kmart Jr.

·         Austin Reaves – Our racially-motivated jab at Mac McClung. The only chance Reaves stands of winning this thing is if he brings LeBron James out of the crowd and throws James an alley-oop. Is that likely? Is it legal? Tune in to find out!

Arguably more important than the participants, here are your five judges:

·         Jamal Crawford – That’s right, we got our namesake to pull double duty and judge our thing, too

·         Jeff Green – Nobody is in-game dunking like Jeff Green, definitely not at his age. We’re paying him handsomely to forego his vacation an extra night and shit on these young peoples’ efforts

·         Mike Muscala – Need him here

·         Russell Westbrook – The first step in his PR turnaround

·         A Holographic Projection of Manute Bol – I’m not taking questions at this time

And now! On to the main event!

Rd 1

Dunking first is Jalen Duren. He trots to the rim from the right side and casually throws down a windmill from outside of the paint. The crowd’s pretty tame about it, but Duren winks into the camera as he sits back down. Upon further review, replay reveals that his eyes were closed the whole time. The judges deliberate and give this a respectable 40 (if you must know, JC: 9, JG: 8, MM: 9, RW: 7, HPMB: 7)

Up next comes Shaedon Sharpe. Wasting no time, he pulls Kenyon Martin Sr. out of the crowd. The camera zooms in on Kenyon Martin Jr and he’s got that “Please God not like this” look on his face. Sharpe positions Kmart Sr. in front of the rim and instructs him to hold the ball on his head. Sharpe backpedals to the three-point line, wipes the bottoms of his shoes, winks at Kmart Jr., and proceeds to leap over Kmart Sr., put the ball between his legs, and slam it home. The crowd loves it, and after only a moment’s deliberation the judges give it a 44 (9s across the board except for Holo Bol, who gets some stick from the crowd for giving it an 8)

Visibly shaken by the events that just took place, Kmart Jr. steps up. He looks to his father for support, then gets things going. With an unfortunate lack of showmanship that undercuts the difficulty of the dunk, Kmart Jr. throws the ball so that it bounces off the floor and then the backboard, then he catches it midair and does the Vince Carter honey pot up-to-the-elbow dunk. It’s a killer dunk, but after Sharpe took us to the next level, it’s a bit of a let down. The judges think and give it a 41 (JC: 9, JG: 8, MM: 9, RW: 8, HPMB: 7)

Staring down the barrel of inevitable defeat, Austin Reaves misreads the crowd in the strangest way, puts on a Superman cape, brings out Dwight Howard, and recreates one of his dumb Superman bits from dunk contests of yore. No one really understands what’s happening, including the judges, and it shows in their answer – 34 (JC: 7, JG: 7, MM: 8, RW: 6, HPMB: 6)

*End of Rd 1, we sit as such: 1st – Sharpe: 44, 2nd – Kmart Jr: 41, 3rd – Duren: 40, 4th – Reaves 36

Rd 2

Having seen the competition, Duren decides to kick it up a notch. Pulling teammate Cade Cunningham’s three-year-old daughter, Riley, out of the crowd, he squats down and gives her a piggy-back ride. With her clinging to his back like a lemur, Duren jogs to the rim from the front and hits a flawless 360 windmill. The crowd is hype as hell, and the judges make a big show of refusing to deliberate. 10s across the board, although Russ and Holo Bol don’t look thrilled about it.

Sharpe once again dips into the well of the crowd and produces Dame Lillard. Positioning him behind the three-point line, Sharpe whispers some instructions into his ear. One wonders if they’ve practiced this before or if they’re actually winging it. Dame launches a high-arching shot that bounces in the middle of the paint. Sharpe, leaps, catches it on its way up, spins around, and throws a Blake Griffin-style dunk from too far away that clatters off the back of the rim so hard it lands in the stands. The crowd is unperturbed by the miss, and cheer wildly for the second attempt. This time Dame sends the ball a little deeper into the paint and Sharpe easily palms it, spins, and with one hand behind his head slams it through the hoop. Morally unable to give out a 10 for a second chance, some of the judges get booed for dropping Sharpe’s score to 47 (JC: 10, JG: 9, MM: 10, RW: 9, HPMB: 9)

Doing some quick math in his head, Kmart Jr. sees he needs to get a perfect 50 to advance to the finals. Gone is the skittishness of round one. We now zoom in on the LeBron with the Heat meme eyes. Kmart Jr. is ready to do some damage. He pulls fellow competitor and great sport Jalen Duren under the basket, and after some whispered conversation and a quick dap, Kmart Jr. retreats to the foul line. Unleashing a primal scream, he dribbles at Duren, who’s down in a defensive stance. Switching the ball to his left hand, Kmart Jr. launches into a dunk even as Duren rises to contest it. Duren gets a finger on the ball, but it’s not enough to stop the ferocious dunk from Martin, who hangs on the rim and actually growls. The crowd loves it, but it has the judges quite confused. They feel the weight of precedent settle in on their shoulders. Replay reveals what we already knew: Duren appeared to genuinely try to block the shot. And while it was no easy feat, it was hardly a dunk contest kind of dunk. After a commercial break, the judges show their scores: 42 (JC: 10, JG: 7, MM: 10, RW: 7, HPMB: 8). Martin hangs his head, but he’s quickly jolted back into smiling by the mob of players on the sidelines.

With nothing to gain and nothing to lose, Austin Reaves calls on LeBron’s aid. LeBron steps onto the court to thunderous applause and then goes full Melo with the fake shot before sitting back down and waiving off his helpless teammate’s cry. Shrugging his shoulders, Austin Reaves backs up to halfcourt before charging forward and leaping from the foul line in a picture-perfect replica of Jordan’s dunk contest winning dunk back in the day, including the tongue. The crowd falls into stunned silence before erupting. LeBron mimes taking off his own crown and placing it on Reaves’ head. 50s across the board, and even Holo Bol is smiling.

*Even with all that, the scores dictate that the two advancing dunkers are Sharpe and Duren. Here we go

Final Rd

In the real dunk contest they get two dunks in the final round, but by that point I’m typically bored, so for this one they just get one last dunk. Previous scores are erased; may the best dunk win. Sharpe and Duren stand at halfcourt and play rock, paper, scissors (best two out of three, obviously) to decide who gets to go second. Sharpe wins, and in a shocking call decides to go first. Maybe he wants to throw off Duren’s rhythm. Maybe he’s just that confident. Either way, here’s what he does:

Sharpe dips for the third time into the well of celebrity appearances, and this time pulls Holographic Projection Manute Bol off of the judges’ table. Bah Gawd! Through a marvel of modern technology that no one understands, he positions 7’6 Bol just in front of the rim, facing the basket. Sharpe takes a shockingly short run-up, then bunnies right over Bol and dunks with both hands. The crowd loses it. Bol Bol, who’s obviously in attendance, does the Supah Hot Fiya hands on his face falling over gif. It’s remarkable all around. Upon further inspection through the replay, in a screen grab that will be used for years, we see Sharpe’s junk glide right through the back of Holo Bol’s neck and most of his head. Unavoidable as it may be, this seems to unnerve the judges. A hush falls over the crowd as they cast their votes. JC: 10, JG: 10, MM: 10, RW: 10, HPMB: 9 for a total score of 49.

Sharpe can’t believe it, and boos rain down on Holo Bol. “I felt it,” Holo Bol says, tapping the back of his head. “I felt the junk.” The crowd slowly calms down as we approach the final dunk of the night.

Duren surveys the crowd, seeming to run through a couple of different options before grinning and heading over to the crowd. High-fiving Riley Cunningham, Duren pulls Kenyon Martin Sr. back out onto the court. He positions him exactly where Sharpe had him in front of the basket for Sharpe’s first dunk. Duren steps back to admire his work, shakes his head, and heads over to the crowd again. He pulls Kenyon Martin Jr. off the bench! Martin is shaking his head, but Duren says clearly enough for the camera to see: “We had a deal.” Duren positions Martin just behind his father and backs up. The dunk timer, which hasn’t mattered yet tonight and doesn’t actually matter in our format, hits 5 seconds. Duren takes one dribble and sprints toward the basket. He leaps, clearing the Martins, and yams it home while staring down Sharpe on the sidelines.

The crowd goes crazy, and players mob Duren, including Sharpe. It’s clear they’ve decided who the winner should be, but we wait in anticipation for a judge to fuck it up. They deliberate heavily, so heavily in fact that we take another commercial break. But after the break, they display their scores proudly: 10s across the board. A perfect 50. Jalen Duren is our 2023 Dunk Contest Champion! For a prize, he gets a life-size trophy of a player who looks an awful lot like Austin Reaves.