A Tribute to the High Flyers

Flash back a few decades. You tell someone that you are going to run and then jump, soar roughly 13 feet in the air, and throw a ball through a goal that is 10 feet off of the ground. What would they say? Well, their first reaction probably would have been laughter, then they would probably call you crazy. This week we recognize the crazy. This week we pay tribute to the imaginative high flyers who took dunking to a new level.

With All-Star weekend drawing to a close, I figured what better time for a video tribute to some of the game's high flyers. With a long and distinguished list of high flyers including the likes of Dominique Wilkins, Vince Carter, Larry Nance, Spud Webb, Dee Brown, Jason Richardson, Dwight Howard, Nate Robinson, and Andre Iguodala, we had a rough time deciding who to include in the tribute so we took inspiration from last night's Sprite Slam Dunk Contest.

For those who didn't have a chance to see the contest, it was excellent. Each dunker brought their A game and put on a great display of athleticism and creativity. At the end of the night Blake Griffin beat out Javale McGee in the voting but we think it could have gone either way (personally I think the choir pushed Griffin over the top).

While the two finalists put on quite a show my favorite dunk of the night was performed by Serge Ibaka. Ibaka's first dunk of the night added a new level of awesomeness to a Slam Dunk Contest classic, the foul line dunk. While many have performed the dunk, the best recognized examples come from Dr. J and Michael Jordan. So what made Ibaka's dunk so sweet you may ask; well, check out the video, Ibaka was fully behind the foul line on takeoff(I think it was the shoes)!



Here's a few more sweet dunks from last night and over the years:











High flyers, thanks for confirming that imagination is indeed more important than knowledge, we salute you. Happy Sunday!