Events : USA : TX : Houston : NBA All Star Weekend Slam Dunk Contest
When : February 16, 2013
Where : 1510 Polk St Houston, TX 77002 (Toyota Center)
Time : 8:30pm
The Slam Dunk Contest is an annual National Basketball Association (NBA) competition held during the NBA All-Star Weekend. The contest was inaugurated by the American Basketball Association (ABA) at its All-Star Game in 1976 in Denver, the same year the slam dunk was legalized in the NCAA. As a result of the ABA-NBA merger later that year there would not be another slam dunk contest at the professional level until 1984. The contest currently uses fan voting, via text-messaging, to determine the winner of the final round.
The very first slam dunk contest was won by Julius Erving of the Nets at the 1976 ABA All-Star Game. The current champion of the NBA Dunk Contest is Jeremy Evans of the Utah Jazz.
Sprite Slam Dunk Contest Review By Sekou Smith : NBA.com
With the game's biggest stars watching from courtside, Saturday night's Sprite Slam Dunk contest provided an opportunity for a fresh new face to introduce himself to the NBA's global audience.
And that's exactly what Jeremy Evans did.
A relative unknown and former D-Leaguer, the Utah Jazz forward won the 2012 Sprite Slam Dunk contest, defeating Houston's Chase Budinger in a tight race that included 4 million voters on NBA.com deciding the champion rather than a panel of judges.
Evans collected 29 percent of the fan vote to Budinger's 28 percent, instantly making a name for himself after not even being an original invitee.
He was a last-minute replacement for New York Knicks guard Iman Shumpert, practiced three hours, completed a two-ball dunk in which he jumped over Jazz teammate Gordon Hayward, who was sitting in a chair, for his most notable dunk of the night.
He seemed genuinely shocked when TNT's Cheryl Miller announced him as the winner over Budinger, Indiana's Paul George and Minnesota's Derrick Williams.
"It's amazing," Evans said. "I came in and they asked me how long I've been practicing and I think I found time maybe Tuesday, Wednesday and that I was really going to be in it. Thursday night, I came in, they gave me 45 minutes on the court. That's about it."
Evans used YouTube to come up with the chair dunk, watching the Team Flight Brothers. He also donned a Karl Malone throwback jersey and jumped over comedian Kevin Hart, the MVP of Friday's Sprint NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, who was dressed as a mailman for the skit that led up to the dunk.
Evans credited the fans for his win, admitting that there were more impressive dunks than all but his chair dunk.
"Without them, I feel like it may have went a different way or one of the guys would have won it," Evans said. "I feel like they chose what they felt was the best dunk."
George did a lights-out dunk, where he wore a uniform that glowed in the dark arena as he completed a 360 dunk. He also jumped over two of his teammates -- 7-foot-2 Roy Hibbert and Dahntay Jones -- for another one of his dunks.
Williams had a wicked 360 that he caught off the side of the backboard, the assist coming from Timberwolves' rookie point guard Ricky Rubio, and also had a nasty windmill dunk while jumping over a motorcycle for his first dunk.
Budinger pulled on a Cedric Ceballos throwback jersey and tried to recapture the magic of the "hocus pocus" dunk" Ceballos used to win the contest 20 years ago in this city. Budinger added his own twist, though, with Ceballos standing there watching, by throwing it down backwards.
It wasn't a KIA, like 2011 Sprite Slam Dunk champion Blake Griffin used, but Budinger pulled out the first high-profile prop of the night when he donned a red cap backwards and proved that white men can jump and soared over Diddy for the first dunk of the contest.
"When I have kids I'm going to tell that I jumped over P-Diddy," a gracious Budinger said, calling it his favorite dunk of the night.
Evans, however, will leave town with the trophy and much higher profile than he had before he showed up here for All-Star Weekend. In a year of pleasant surprises around the league -- most notably Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin -- Evans is hoping that his win Saturday night won't be his last time on the big stage.
"I wouldn't say that," he said when asked if this weekend will serve as the unofficial kickoff of Evan-sanity. "But I feel like it's a start. People didn't really know who I was before this, but after tonight, hopefully they know my name."
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Address 1510 Polk St Houston, TX 77002 | Phone (713) 758-7200
Website | Facebook | Twitter
Address 1510 Polk St Houston, TX 77002 | Phone (713) 758-7200
Sources : Sprite Slam Dunk Contest Photo | Sprite Slam Dunk Recap Video | Sprite Slam Dunk Contest Information | Sprite Slam Dunk Contest Review By Sekou Smith
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