This year’s Slam Dunk Contest at the NBA All-Star Weekend was, like other recent years, a bit of a snoozefest; largely due to weird props, whiffed dunks, and a heavy reliance on the largely uninterested celebrity talent sitting in the front row. And then Hamidou Diallo showed up and shut the whole dang thing down.
[jwplayer OZACKE0F]
The Oklahoma City Thunder rookie took the contest home in a canter after somehow managing to jump clean over Shaq.
Shaq, for those of you keeping score at home, is not small. He is quite large. One of the largest of all time, in fact. So jumping over him – over him – is certainly no mean feat.
Diallo not only managed to do just that, but he hung from the rim by his ***ELBOW*** post-dunk and revealed a pull-away Superman jersey, just to put the final full stop on proceedings.
Vince Carter + Shaq = Legendary
We see you @hamidoudiallo 🏆 pic.twitter.com/uZfHk9qWow
— ESPN (@espn) February 17, 2019
Big. Really, really big.
So big that it managed to completely silence and dumbfound Kevin Garnett and Charles Barkley, which is not an easy thing to do.
“Please knock Shaq down.” 😂
KG & Chuck had a courtside view of Hamidou Diallo’s dunk over the Big Fella at the #ATTSlamDunk contest pic.twitter.com/PvVEtdLEEx
— KG’s Area 21 (@KGArea21) February 17, 2019
Pitch for next year: Remove Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon from regular season play, pay them $1 million extra to focus on getting healthy, then put the two of them in the contest against Diallo and Zion Williamson. The contest keeps going until both backboards are completely destroyed.
You know it makes sense, NBA.
