The NBA Won't Allow Dwight Howard to Blow Your Mind

Arrrrrgggggh. This is so entirely frustrating. Dwight Howard had two dunks planned for Saturday night's dunk contest that he won't be allowed to do. Marc Stein tells us about them in his ESPN Insider blog, and I'll just go ahead and pass them along to you. There's no reason to be concerned about ruining the surprise for you, since he can't do them. Says Stein:

Orlando sources report that Howard has been practicing a couple wicked maneuvers that might inject this dying competition with the ingenuity/originality it desperately needs. One is a 360 throwdown with the rim hiked to 12 feet, two feet higher than regulation. The other sets the rim at 11 1/2 feet and has Howard purportedly going between his legs with the ball in mid-air before flushing.

Three-sixty at 12 feet ... and the NBA won't let us see it. Awesome. Thanks.

I guess there's something to be said for preserving the purity of the dunk contest (wow, that sounds odd), and a standard goal is 10 feet, and is a basic part of the competition, and it's what everyone else had to work with, blah blah blah ... but at the same time, it's the dunk contest.

This is supposed to be fun. This is supposed to showcase creativity. This is supposed to be for the fans. When it comes to the game of basketball itself, I'm a bit of a purist. Things should be a certain way. But again, we're talking about the dunk contest. When the league is making a decision about what should or should not be allowed in the dunk contest, the only question to ask themselves is this: Will it be more fun for the fans? That's it. That's really all that matters.

He should have never asked. He should've just taken someone with him who could raise and lower the hoop themselves. If the NBA wanted to disqualify his dunk afterwards, fine. Let them do it on live TV and embarrass themselves.

I see only one possible solution for Dwight Howard here. Get Pat Garrity, get Bo Outlaw, get Travis Deiner, and get J.J. Redick. Round them all up, head to the hardware store, get some pick-axes, some shovels, some small explosives if you have to ... and you take them to Vegas with you on Saturday night, and have them lower the floor of the Thomas and Mack center by two feet. It's the only way.