JAG’s Sports Blog

New York Knicks mighty might 5 ft 9 point guard Nate Robinson won the NBA All-Star week slam dunk competition against players close to 8-12 inches taller than him Saturday Night in Houston. This will lend a lot of credibility again to the slam dunk competition with a player under 6 feet winning, but it was not without a little controversy.

Robinson defeated last year’s champ 6ft 9 Josh Smith, Hakim Warrick and 6ft 6 Andre Igoudala in the finals. Robinson’s win in the finals over Igoudala is where a bit of the controversy came in. Igoudala led off the final round with a spectacular behind the back reverse dunk that earned him a perfect 50. Robinson was behind and had to nail a couple of dunks to catch up. He took the lead with a dunk over 1986 Slam Dunk champ 5 ft7in Spud Webb. Igoudala tied Robinson with another high-flying dunk to force the first ever dunk off in the competition. By this time it was obvious that Robinson would win as long as he made his dunk as the judges were determined to score Robinson higher no matter what Igoudala performed.

Robinson attempted an around the back throw off the glass 14 times before he decided to move a bit closer to the three-point line and finally dunked the ball. He scored a 47. Igoudala crushed another reverse jam that only got him 46 and the new Slam Dunk champion is 5 ft 9 Nate Robinson of the New York Knicks. Robinson winning is a great thing to bring excitement to the most waning Slam Dunk competition, but the problem is when you determine ahead of time who the winner will be.

Any time people compete, they want to know they actually have a chance to win. For the judges to pretty much know they were going to score Robinson higher if he succeeded with his dunks, just simply takes away from the spirit of the competition. In the past, there used to be either a number of chances you had to make the dunk or a time limit to successfully make the dunk. I really think there’s a problem when you get so many chances that the arena could have been emptied and brought all the fans back and Robinson could have still been trying to make the dunk. It makes me think of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics when the French judge tried to make the Russians the winners no matter how their routines turned out in their competition against the Canadians. The other competitions like the 3-point shootouts or the skills test would never allow multiple chances to get it right, so why the Slam Dunk portion of the events.

Speaking of the other events, 7 footer Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavs, won the 3-point shootout over sharpshooters Ray Allen of the Seattle Supersonics and Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizards. Just goes to show that working on your game is more important than just practicing dunks like younger players are doing nowadays. In the skills competition, Dwayne Wade of the Miami Heat, defeated Cleveland’s star LeBron James, Phoenix’s ball wizard Steve Nash, and star rookie guard from New Orleans Chris Paul. Wade finished the course in 26.1 seconds, which was .3 faster than last year’s record set by Steve Nash. The San Antonio team of Tony Parker, Steve Kerr, and Kendra Wecker, defeated teams from Los Angeles, Houston, and Phoenix by hitting all 6 of their shots in 25.1 seconds. Parker wrapped it up with a shot just inside the half-court stripe. The sophomore team on Friday Night defeated the rookies team by 10 points to get the competition and weekend of activities going with Andre Igoudala winning the MVP award after scoring 30 points on an array of dunks and long distance shots.