DeMar DeRozan, Dunk Contest Throwback

I vowed on Friday to skip the Dunk Contest. By end of that night's broadcast segment, I was having second thoughts.

The Dunk-In, so stupid on paper, worked at least on this poor sap. Not necessarily as a preview of competition, but as an introduction to the guy who might well win it all, and with good reason.

DeMar DeRozan is sick, a natural, the kind of fluid athlete who just looks great dunking a basketball. It reminded me why, even if we'll never match Contests past, and Kenny Smith's "every year we see something new" is pure shill, there's always that chance that someone will hit the sweet spot.

Not someone who will rewrite the canon, but a well-executed display of above-the-rim prowess from a guy who seems comfortable in his dunking skin. Nothing revolutionary, but in a way, something more like the greats than any attempt to one-up their moments.

Eric Gordon, the little shooter that could whose dunking abilities were talked up endlessly by the TNT crew, was the fall guy. Whether everyone else of note said no, or the whole thing was WWE rigged from the start, is a matter for historians. As it turned out, at least for more, I got a reason to believe in tonight. The teaser is a time-honored tradition, and here it worked like a charm.

There are some who will tell you that Gordon was robbed, that his dunks were more difficult, ornate, and generally indicative of the draw up the impossible, take five tries to do it, and completely ruin that element of surprise and effortlessness that has defined the names who came before. That's missing the point.

Matt Moore covered the amateur sideshow, and shared these thoughts on the subject:

The runner-up, Alonzo Gee, had some sick stuff, but what was most impressive is he did four dunks in five attempts. He only missed once. I feel like that should count for more. Then Dar Tucker cleared a seven foot white dude named Brian Butch who looked terrified, and that was game. But Gee's performance was really impressive from a performance standpoint.

DeRozan hitting his admittedly less tricky dunks on the first try, with all the poise of an Olympic athlete nailing his routine, has IT when it comes to this stuff. I hesitate to bring up voice (too jazzy) or soul (too racial), but something like that is the deciding factor. You can get the trick kit that came in the mail, or the performer who has made this act his own.

If, as my conspiracy-minded brain is apt to think, the point all along was to spotlight DeRozan, it was a smart one. Go back and watch the older Contests. What stands out isn't how tricky the dunks are -- although time has hardened our hearts to their importance at the time -- but how darn earnest, and continuous, they come across.

There's been talk lately about a distinction between Contest guys and in-game gods like LeBron. In the olden days, such divisions made no sense. This wasn't ice-skating, and if you could floor crowds in a game, you had something to bring to The Contest.

Certainly, that has to count for something. It may, in fact, be the Dunk Contest's only hope. I think Shannon Brown may have a little bit of this in him. Despite having maligned Josh Smith for winning his 2005 crown on a gimmick, he's got that look. I'm getting sick of typing Andre Iguodala in this context, and I'm not quite sure where this leaves his ROBBED dunk, but he's got this ideal combo of feel for the dunk and creativity within those bounds. Michael Jordan and Vince Carter defined the event because they made pure invention seem like it happened in the rush of a breakaway.

I was dour before, saying we'd entered a Dunk Contest era where only gimmicks and cold technical proficiency mattered. The Iguodala dunk was an example of something, but I wasn't quite sure what. Not I see it clearly. Iguodala would've marked a shift back toward the naturalism of the old Contests, when crazy stuff happened but we felt like it was tossed off all casual. Jason Richardson never had that quality. Iggy did.

DeMar DeRozan may be the quintessential retro-dunker, a guy who convinces you that he's telling you something about himself and the way he sees the game. This ain't no darn ice-skating in here.