Well... it's great to see Henry Bekkering got hitched (I didn't get invited, but I ain't mad atcha, bruh!)
No, really the Caucasian Air Canada didn't really tie the knot, but I'd imagine when he did the ceremony would go a lil' sumthin' like this...
Dearly beloved... into this holy union Mr. Davis and Ms. Kirilenko now come to be joined under the hoop.
IF ANY PERSON KNOWS OF ANY REASON WHY THIS MAN IN HIS TUXEDO SHOULD NOT TAKE THE BALL TO THE HOLE AND TOMAHAWK JAM ON TOP OF THIS WOMAN IN HER FULL WEDDING GOWN, SPEAK NOW OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE...
With the power invested in me, I NOW PRONOUNCE THEE... DUNKER AND DUNKEDON.
Mad props to YouTube's mixstealer300. He's been cataloguing the hypest rim-rockers in NCAA Division I, and his latest mix, "Taken to School," features players of all sizes with uncanny springs... and deftly illustrates why some defenders wish they had NEVER aced that SAT.
Here's a similar one mixstealer300 put together back in December 2007.
(2008 Update: This cat managed to remain persona non grata while making beaucoup highlights... for other NBA ballers. After several seasons with no pub and little cash, in 2006-2007 he decided it was time to make a few of his own. Now he makes mad rubles to the tune of $14.3 mill over the next three years in Russia. The hoops world knows who he is, now.)
Say My Name, Say My Name
March 2007
You are Bostjan Nachbar. And since October 14, 2003, it has sucked to be you.
Getting vaulted and assaulted by a player nowhere near his prime in some preseason contest is bad enough. Having some dunk aficionados refer to it as the most athletic jump-over jam in basketball history is even worse enough. But the ultimate shame comes because no one bothers to remember you, the victim. And the few that do can barely pronounce your name. That’s when you get relegated to the unfortunate title of “That Guy.”
“How ‘bout the other night when that Gerald Wallace kid hurled over That Guy on the Rockets?” the typical water-cooler convo would go. “He almost cleared that big Croatian dude!” (You’re from Slovenia.) “For real, when Wallace’s hips got above that Serbian stiff’s ears I damn near coughed up my malt liquor!”
Patrick Ewing. Bob Sura. Dikembe. Kelly Tripucka. Tree friggin’ Rollins. Each and every time Jordan dunked over somebody, those left to tell the tale recall both the moments of sheer will AND MJ’s unwilling bystanders. So what’s the deal with you? Yeah, one might use the excuse that your best years were in Euroleague instead of the high-profile NCAA colleges, so you had no rep worthy of defiling. But mention Frederic Weis and what image immediately comes to mind? Or maybe they’ll argue that the dunk was a case of marginal talent over even less marginal talent, so your actual name isn’t relevant. But that assertion is flawed, too. Everybody that meets Kirk Snyder for the first time asks him about Von Wafer.
So in the collective consciousness of hoop fans known as the Posterized Hall of Shame, essentially, you were Kornel David. Except Korny didn’t have a name that looks like some Wheel of Fortune contestant’s nightmare. You were doomed to become that locker-room trivia question no one could answer.
“Yo, remember when Gerald Wallace was with the Kings and took off from one step in the lane, went all Statue of Liberty on That Turkish Dude and 360’d while clinging to the rim?” “Man, Gerald went at that Hungarian homeboy like a triple jumper at the Olympics.” “What the hell was that mofo’s name that got shat on?”… “Boston Nutbag?”… “Bozo Snackbar?”…“Bustin Noshbagel?”
You are Bostjan Nachbar. Reppin’ the hardscrabble streets of Slovenj Gradec. Your friends, both of them, and your mama call you Boki. It is now three seasons later and, frankly, you’ve had enough.
You didn’t come halfway around the globe to get shown the exits like some misguided AND1 Open Run contestant. You were not just another Eurotrash shooter with no defensive skill doomed to a short and unremarkable NBA shelf-life. Unbeknownst to all, you had patience, perseverance, heart. After a run with the Rockets and Hornets, now you’re with the Nets and have Jason Kidd droppin’ crazy dimes. And you had something no one before had ever bothered to wonder about. Mad Boosties.
Raps fans were left scratching their domes: “Where did that come from, eh? Better yet, WHO did that come from?”
Next month, you upped the ante, losing Danny Granger on a give-and-go, grabbing a J-Kidd bounce pass, and clearing Jermaine O’Neal along the baseline on the way to the tin for the tomahawk slam.
Rookie Marcus Williams sprung from the bench. He’s seen you in practice. He heard all about your scrimmage dunks on Yao Ming back in your Houston days. He knew what was coming.
By then, Jersey fans not only started pronouncing your name right, they knew you were no fluke. But you weren’t done, by no means.
Over the next five months you would swoop in to challenge some of the most fearsome (and least suspecting) shotblockers in the game. After the All-Star break, you advanced the degree of difficulty, going from the likes of Jared Jeffries and Calvin Booth, to Tyson Chandler, Tim Duncan and Elton Brand.
You saved your Ultimate Highlight, though, for Samuel Dalembert. Apparently your posterizing exploits hadn’t made the press yet in Port-au-Prince, much less Philly. With just 5 minutes left in the game, you drive around a cement-shoed Kyle Korver on yet ANOTHER curl, and raise up like a helicopter over a stunned Dalembert, who didn’t even have time to leave his feet to challenge you.
You punch the ball through the hoop hard enough for the whole arena to hear it, then literally breakdance on Dalembert’s shoulders, pointing to teammates from the rim. Gerald Wallace-style. Eddie House celebrates before you even bring the ball down on Dalembert. He knew what was coming.
Now it’s Daly, not you, who gets his name butchered. Marv Albert exults as he unintentionally hates on the Haitian: “Oh! Soaring over Dal-umm-barr! And lands on him! Wow!”
Now you get mad love – and ink – from both sides of the Atlantic. Not only are people getting your name right, you can get rid of that ‘Boki” moniker your mama gave you, because now you’ve got fans dubbing you “The Boss,” and “The Slovenian Slammer.” The TV network regularly interrupts “Slovenian Idol” to show off your Dunk of the Night from the States. Your cellie’s blowin up these days from well-wishers, bold enough to make personal requests, especially from back home. “Yo, Boss, good luck in the playoffs, but do me a favor and throw one down over Big Z for me, will ya? I bet my buddy from Ljubljana 20 Euros you’d blast one on that lame Lithuanian.”
There are two guys in particular who the Sixers' Samuel Dalembert will be happy to know have elected to depart from The League this off-season. One is to be featured in our next Crammed-On Chronicle archive from 2007, as he heads back overseas (to Moscow) to get some of that strong Euro cash.
The other is the Orlando Magic's Pat Garrity, who sat in quite a catbird seat as the treasurer for the NBA Players' Union. He retired from the NBA this week, to the amazement of many teammates who thought he stopped playing quality basketball long ago. In The League for ten uneventful seasons, including nine with the Magic, Garrity's legacy on YouTube consists of a single 30-second dunk mixtape... basically three replays of the same jam, but a good one from 2006. Opening himself up on the weakside after making a screen for the double-teamed Steve Francis, he barrels into the lane and knocks Sammy to the floor, folding him up like some cheap patio furniture as he windmills in a right-hander. Garrity's dunk elicited gasps from fans and teammates alike and was the "WTF moment" of the season. Outside of the 53 starts at small forward he had for the injury-riddled Magic in 2003, the dunk had to be the WTF moment of his career as well.
Posterizing King James in his prime on Prime Time TV should beenough to scribble the Brute Ute down in permanent ink as a player on somebody's NBA bench, especially since the depth on some of these teams is hideously bad. Anybody that finds the video get it on here, will ya? It's like no one was a "Witness" that day!
Since then, Johnsen's biggest notoriety in the League was as a footnote, being called up by the Pacers in '04 after Artest and Stephen Jackson went buckwild in the stands and Jermaine coldcocked that Fat Joe wannabe. After the Magic and Pacers supposedly couldn't keep a spot for him, he bounced around the CBA, with Jaren Jackson (Where Are They Now Victim #6) and his Gary Steelheads, and the Stampede. Then the Stormin Mormon went on a Mission to Europe, with a stop in Greece and with the ULEB league before his current "place de residence." Britton will be ballin this year with perennial French powerhouse Pau Orthez, the same people who brought you Boris Diaw & Mickael Pietrus. And you thought Mormons didn't dunk on Sundays...
(2008 Update: The man whose summer-league crowning of the young King earned him a starting SF spot on the Magic’s 2003-2004 team still hasn’t been able to stick with an NBA squad, and has spent his much of his time in the minors. Most recently, Johnsen took time out of D-League ball with the Utah Flash to play in Turkey with ULEB Cup contenders Galatasaray Café Crown. He can chat about the Beehive State even over there, as their star player is former Utah Jazz guard Dee Brown.)
Dunk on LeBron's dome? That may earn you a few 10-day contracts. But play college hoops at Yale, look like the very picture of a stiff, average 3 points a game, shoot free throws WORSE THAN SHAQ, but stand at 6'11"? You're a 15-year NBA veteran!
Chris probably should've thought about baseball as a sports career, though. Shaq crammed down on the not-so-studly Dudley in a Blazer-Laker game in the mid-90's, nearly ripping off the rim, then shoved the already stumbling Dudley Do Wrong after the dunk to help him crash to the hardwood even faster. But a true Ivy Leaguer is always smart enough to know when he's been bitch-slapped, and this Eli wasn't just gonna take it, uh, lying down. Peeling the Spalding ball from his forehead, Chris rose up and hurled the rock at Shaq. The Big Aristotle was already at half-court, grinning like a Cheshire Cat, when Bam! A perfect strike from the Dudster into Shaq's baq, right between the shoulder blades. Upon witnessing this spectacle, Doug Collins scratched his head and remarked, “Now here's a guy who can't hit a free throw but can hit Shaq from 47 feet away!”
Sure, Chris got T'd up and ejected, but he got his message across. Something along the lines of "I may suck, Shaq, but you won't treat me like your boy Kobe does his ladies!" It was a show of confidence that would not be seen again against Shaquille until Andrew Bynum got his payback jam this year.Since then he took his not-so-well-earned paychecks and opened his own foundation for kids with diabetes, something the Dudmaster himself has dealt with throughout his career.
CAPTION: Bushie Boy asks 17-year old, "You think I can dunk on this guy?" Kid responds, "Sure, that's easier than finding those Weapons of Mass Destruction, Mr. President!"
LeBron challenges the scrubs in a promo for Cub Cadet.
Tell me if you agree... Bron's swat on the goggled stiff was a goaltend if you ask me. Ha! And the poor fat dude hadn't probably ducked that far down since grade school.
(We’re all about equality here at Nasteedunx. Often focusing on the biggest SportsCenter Top Play-inducing names in the hoops world, often we lose sight of the more ebonistically-challenged among us who are still blessed with insane hopz… and hold no reservations showing it off on their opponents. In honor of our pastier pals, we periodicially feature them on a segment we like to call “White Boys Can’t WHAT?”)
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It’s a long, long ride from Elkhart, Indiana to Bellingham, Washington with not much to do in between. On the road to the Elkhart Express’ defense of their title at the International Basketball League championship, Coleco Buie really should’ve spent some of his idle time reading the scouting report on Tyler Amaya of the Bellingham Slam.
Unfortunately for him, the two-time defending IBL champs may have headed to Whatcom County a bit too overconfident to take heed to stuff like this…
Loves destroying weak zone defenses, either by popping threes over the top, or by coming off a curl and tip-slamming on people's heads, like THIS…
As demonstrated, will unapologetically smash even on his own teammate to score the bucket. More than happy to posterize would-be defenders and put their shame on full display on his MySpace page. Will try to take advantage inside, especially since our 7-foot-2 center missed the team bus back in Elkhart, Indiana and won’t play in the championship game. Be sure to have somebody box him out of the lane on rebounds, at all costs…
Coleco Buie should have read the scouting report on Tyler Amaya.
Instead, Buie wound up with the kind of ColecoVision you DON’T wanna play with. Plus, he and his Elkhart Express wound up leaving Bellingham without another trophy.
Typically, you get some Where Are They Now feature archived from the old Yahoo! site, around 2005-2006, bolstered with a 2008 update. Well, you know, somewhere between WATN Numbers 6 and 8 I forgot to do a number 7. Reading IS Fundamental, kids! So, to compensate for our demonstrated incapacity of counting to ten, just in time for the Party Conventions, here at Nasteedunx we’re inserting a fresh new Where Are They Now 7: Politics Edition.
Victim #7: Reggie Love
REGGIE LOVE IS ON TOP OF THE WORLD.
Yeahhhh… THAT Reggie Love. Chew it, swallow and digest that. Now, say it once more with me.
REGGIE LOVE IS ON TOP OF THE WORLD.
You Nasteedunx purists will point out that, technically, Mister Love doesn’t qualify for a WATN, since his personal shame-of-fame never took place on the hardwood. Or the blacktop. Not even the driveway. Nonetheless, ol’ boy shurrrr found a way to get teabagged. Pretty badly, in plain view for all posterity. So badly, in fact, he got kicked off the Duke basketball team by Coach Krzyzewski. Gosh, not even Greg “Green Tea” Paulus can claim that!
A 6’-5” Charlotte native and former All-American football player and North Carolina high school hoops player of the year, Reggie was an up-and-coming forward for the Duke Blue Devils, a walk-on for Coach K’s eventual 2001 championship squad. He was also a two-sport star, starting at wide receiver for Dookie football. Despite his emerging development and “Big Man on Campus” status , a spate of injuries sidetracked his ability to do either sport consistently.
One thing which the Cameron Crazies suggest, and the Lacrosse team confirmed, is that Duke athletes and their fans sure know how to party hardy. Reggie Love was no exception. Before heading back down Tobacco Road one night after a game in 2002, Love decides he’ll spend an evening away from the team at an NC State frathouse. And whether you’re in Rome or Raleigh, you do as the Romans do, y’know? Placing way to much trust in his newfound Wolfpack-in-Sheep’s-Clothing friends, he partook in the imbibing of a few adult-beverages-of-choice. Quite a few. More than enough to get a lil’ tipsy. Enough to leave him passed out, flat-assed-cold on some shoddy (Gawd-knows-what)-stained fraternity futon.
Now all throughout modern anthropology, college frat boys have been well known for embellishing outlandish personal stories where they dished out some measure of comeuppance to college jocks, especially when there were no witnesses to verify the story. For example, aided by just a little inebriation, one of my own frat brethren will be more than happy to share with you every detail of how he allegedly dropped knobs with Rick Fox after a run-in one Sunday morning during a drinking-buddy trip to Chapel Hill. It’s something I suppose he thought was at least remotely feasible and, to somebody not named Vanessa Williams, impressive. Anyway, it’s always convenient to tell the tale when there’s nobody with a tape or a photo or some scintilla of proof. But get a picture or two, and it becomes really hard not to blab to any fool who’ll listen. It’s even harder in the new millennium, when you can spread the embarrassment worldwide via the World Wide Web with little effort at all. All those in the collegiate world who weren’t familiar with the usage of “teabag” as a verb, were now simply two clicks from viewing Reggie Love as Exhibit A.
The news of the ‘bagging incident spread like wildfire through the Piedmont, in Raleigh, Winston-Salem and especially Chapel Hill. The timing couldn’t have been any worse back in Greensboro for Love, as he was just explaining his way out of an Underage Driving While Intoxicated charge from the previous fall to the athletics department and the (legal) courts. Mortified by the dual displays of poor judgment, Coach K had enough, suspending Reggie indefinitely for a “Violation of Team Rules.” What was not crystal clear right away to those who reading newspapers about the suspension was, by that time, thoroughly unambiguous to those flooding college hoop chat rooms and message boards.
Reggie may have gotten banished from Duke hoops, but he wouldn’t leave the school without getting re-focused and snaring a bachelor’s degree in political science. He managed to stick with the talent-starved football team and led the Blue Devils in receptions in his senior year. Still NCAA-eligible, he was allowed to return to the basketball team in 2004, and through it all endured the kind of love on the road that only an ACC heckler can bring to the arena. Recognizing his innate leadership qualities, growth and maturity on and off the court, the ‘04-‘05 Blue Devils voted Reggie Love, bringing all of his 1.6 points per game to the table, as its team captain.
By the end of 2005, though, his hopes for a pro football career were dashed, following uneventful training camp runs with the Green Bay Packers (as a receiver) and Dallas Cowboys (as a Bill Parcells project at linebacker). Reggie found himself searching for a new lease on life, and a way, applying his poli-sci pedigree, to disassociate himself as best he could with the “politics of the past.”
Reggie Love realized he needed a change. Change He Could Believe In.
Enter a presidential candidate equipped with a wicked drop-step move and 20-foot range.
Latching onto Senator Barack Obama’s staff and his underdog campaign early on has put him in the catbird seat as the Democratic nominee’s right-hand man. He started out as a “staff assistant,” merely a mailroom hack. He would find out that, mostly due to superstitions and to relieve tension, the Junior Senator from Illinois loved to run ball on the day of major events like primaries. And in the mailroom, Obama found the perfect guy to break him off at the ankles and post him up in the paint. This mailroom guy came equipped with a Duke degree and sports connections like former Dookie Chris Duhon, who’d jump at the chance to play some 3-on-3 with a potential Baller-in-Chief. Obama’s “3-on-3 Challenge for Change” events drew rave reviews during the primaries.
Even more importantly, he found someone eager to perform the simple yet persistent deeds that come with being the designated “Body Man” for a presidential contender. Now Reggie Love has vaulted from the shadows of punchlines and crude-joke message boards to become the “feel good” political cover story of the New York Times.
“There’s no doubt that Reggie is cooler than I am,” Mr. Obama said, laughing, in a phone interview. “I am living vicariously through Reggie.” Mr. Love said he had been hired with “no job description whatsoever. It was just like, ‘You just go out there and — Take. Care. Of. Stuff,’” Mr. Love said, taking his time with each word.
Some of the “stuff” Mr. Love takes care of: When Mr. Obama makes calls to woo superdelegates, Mr. Love is at his side with a briefing book, dialing the numbers. When an outdoor speech ended on a windy day in Noblesville, Ind., he appeared behind Mr. Obama as he shook hands on the rope line. “Jacket?” he asked, a coat draped at the ready over his arm.
Mr. Obama often mentions that Mr. Love was a wide receiver on a football scholarship at Duke who also walked onto the basketball team. At a rally a few weeks ago in Mr. Love’s hometown, Charlotte, N.C., the candidate led the crowd in a chant of “Reggie, Reggie, Reggie!”
Now with the Democrats coronating Obama, media outlets from ESPN to the major news networks to the papers back home in North Carolina all want to do feature articles on Barack’s “Body Man.”
Sure, the laughs (and a couple other items) were on him for awhile, but it looks to me like Reggie got the last laugh on all of us. Obama found an assistant who knows more than pretty much anybody his age about damage control and triumphing above shameful adversity. Besides, you probably couldn’t find a better person than Reggie to keep watch for B.O. I mean, seriously, who better to keep an eye out for a dude’s n*tsack? You know, in case Jesse Jackson comes calling?
Ah, yes, KJ. Come November, that might be Mayor KJ to you.
Back in the day, though, the diminutive point guard used big men as his personal platform. As Cleveland Cavalier super-sub John “Hot Rod” Williams could attest.
“I’m Kevin Johnson’s Jockstrap and I APPROVE This Message.” (Paid for by Hot Rod’s Dignity!)
And hey, what’s a good stump speech without a good stump… like 7-foot-3 Mark Eaton?
Or you could ask Hakeem Olajuwon if KJ would be the kind of mayor somebody like him could “look up to.” No doubt, “The Dream” still has nightmares over this jam, surely Baron Davis' inspiration for his comparable vault above AK-47 over a decade later.
KJ has parlayed a high-flying career short-circuited by injuries and his local-boy-makes-good persona into an urban redevelopment enterprise in his hometown of Sacramento, building a community development corporation (St. HOPE) he founded two decades ago. Remember the sleepy, flood-prone cowtown chided by Chris Webber and would-be NBA free agent signees as the place where Black social life and culture go to die? Well, he may have just enough pull to become the California capital’s first Black mayor.
He has the standard mayoral candidates’ wide-ranging platform: swatting back crime rates, boosting public school quality, attracting new jobs, “A City That Works for Everyone.”
Interestingly enough, and probably to his benefit, he has demonstrated a willingness to play chicken with Las Vegas’ Maloof Brothers over their demands for a new city-financed arena for their Sacramento Kings and Monarchs, in the same year Seattle’s Sonics skipped town for the prairies of Oklahoma. Might the Kings become the Vegas Stratospheres under hometown baller KJ’s watch? Time will tell.
He snared the most votes in the June primary, topping incumbent Mayor Heather Fargo, but got less than half the votes and will compete with her in a November runoff. Slightly tougher obstacles to climb than Hot Rod Williams are the politically-driven assaults, including three active sexual assault allegations (one closed-case from Phoenix back in 1995 is getting requests to be reopened at the behest of Fargo and her supporters), derelict landlord accusations, charges of anti-gay rights rhetoric, and the alleged abuse of Federal AmeriCorps money. But the centers who dared to jump with the 6-foot-1 guard will tell you, you can doubt Kevin Johnson’s abilities to overcome... but you do so at your own risk.
If R&B superstar Chris Brown loves two things, it's dancing... and streetball hoops. He mixes the two together at celebrity events all the time. If you ask him, he'll tell you he thinks he's a superstar at both. And truth be told, he's at least half-right.
Here he his clowning Little... oh, excuse me, "Bow Wow" at the All-Star celebrity game. Bow Wow is about his level, streetball-wise.
He has a harder time handling high-caliber comp. Here he gets schooled by Hot Sauce and the AND1 team, although he gets to shine for a moment or two.
This summer, though, the rightful heir to the "King of Pop" label wound up on somebody's poster, just not in the way he'd planned.
At a high-profile Streetball matchup in NYC (a daily run called the "Dog Show"), he gets caught on tape, making the crucial streetball error of lazily laying the ball off the glass and gets his sh*t swatted off the boards. Later, he makes the fundamental streetball mistake of jumping to play Help Defense, right under the rim. Against some dude nicknamed Tarzan, who left the megastar looking like Jane for trying to run up late to swat his wind-up tomahawk jam. As usual, the game stops, pandemonium ensues...
Chris, stick to dancing, Cuz, stick to dancing! (He gets Da Bizness about 1:45 minutes in)
Ah yes, the Olympics are here! It’s that time every four years when people set aside their antagonisms, resentments, aggravations, and embrace the spirit of international camaraderie, friendship, mutual understanding, respect, diplomacy, courtesy, fair play, and... ummm…
Oh, to heck with all that crap. Time for The Dream Team to open up a can on some third world nation! Look out, Angola, Team USA is back… and this time, they’re p*ssed off! We all know about THE greatest play in Team USA hoops history. If you've gotten this far, it needs NO introduction…
But what are some of the other great bang-ons in international comp? We’ll post a few here at Nasteedunx, but find some more links and we’ll add ‘em here. Doesn’t have to be Olympic games, but it oughta be FIBA, Pan-Asian, Goodwill Games, or any other tourney where one nation gets to lay the proverbial smackdown on another.
First here’s a photo gallery of slams where Team USA members got to experience the Thrill of Victory… and where opponents endured the Agony of De-Feet in De-Face…
And here’s a sample of international-style gold-medal throwdowns caught on tape the past few years. Somebody call the Red Cross!
Andres Nocioni (Argentina) on KG and Duncan (USA) (FIBA 2002) (SLAM Magazine: “En su cara!”)
Anderson Varejao (Brazil) ON Jermaine O’Neal (USA) (FIBA 2003)
D-Wade (USA) ON Primo Brezec (Slovenia) (Athens 2004)
Sean Marks (New Zealand) on Yao Ming (China) (Athens 2004)
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