UNC Basketball: Tar Heels Dream Dunk Contest
By Matt Hamm
In prison a persons mind sometimes creates fantasy worlds in order to pass the time. The off season is much like basketball prison. Sure there’s recruiting, but what does that lead to? It leads to wild speculation of who’s going to sign where, the minute that is answered. It then leads to more wild speculation, this time, who they are going to perform on the court. And inevidably, when one’s fill of recruiting is reached. More fantasies are created to fill the time, mine often involve merging different parts of basketball history and debating with myself (and my poor audience) questions that can never be answered.
The finalists, UNC has many excellent dunkers in their proud history. But when it comes to flying through the air gracefully with original, creative, powerful aw inspiring dunks. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking Carolina, college basketball, professional basketball or anything, the discussion comes down to two men. Michael Air Jordan, and Vince Vinsanity Carter.
The verdict: Confession, I am one of those Jordan fans that pays $80 more for a pair of shoes, not because I like them that much better, but because they have the Jumpman. I don’t buy regular jerseys too often, I buy the Jumpman brand. I own hundreds of Air Jordan shirts, I pay $70 for sweatpants. I have two walls dedicated to Jordan in my man cave. In other words, Jordan’s pretty much the reason why I love the game of basketball so much.
Now that you know all that useless information about me. Here’s this, the Carter dunk in the Olympics when he jumped completely over the seven foot defender. That’s the greatest dunk of all time. The time Vince spun in mid air, put the ball between his legs and dunked it like it was routine. That may have been a close second. Vince Carter had as much physical talent as Kobe Bryant in my book, close to the talent Jordan had. He just didn’t put it all together the way the other two did. I’m just not sure anybody could dunk a basketball quite like Vinsanity.
Now let’s think about what Jordan did. Nobody, not Carter, not David Thompson, not even Dr. J dunked the way Jordan did in actual games consistently. Jordan from 1984-1993 took off and threw down in somebody’s throat at least a couple times per game. He didn’t just dazzle the crowd all alone in transition. He took it to the rim by the guard defending him, jumped before the big men could collapse on them and crushed it down the help defenders face. Carter did that sometimes, you could probably find an hour clip of those highlights if you wanted to.
The ruthlessness in which Jordan attacked. A lot of players want to dazzle the crowd, end up on Sportscenter, and look cool for commercials. Jordan I’m sure liked that as well. But Michael did it because he wanted the humiliate the defense and strike fear in his opponent. He wanted them to worry about playing him next time. All apart of the mental aspect of the game Jordan mastered better than anyone else who’s ever stepped on the hardwood.
At the end of the day, I’ll take Carter in a modern day dunk contest with stupid props and modern day lameness. I’ll take Jordan with the ball in his hands headed towards Patrick Ewing in a tight game.