I won second place in a dunk contest at the Summit. It was an awesome experience, but I was set up for failure in the final round because they had me going against a prodigy of Turbo. What a sham. Great experince none the less. Just to be at center court in front of 16,000 fans was awesome, but to throw down a left handed wind-mill in the second round was unforgetable.
About Richardson vs Vince- There's a certain quality to the movement of an athlete performing at the highest level. I think it's simply the effect of making something incredibly difficult look easy. I see it all the time watching the olympics- diving, gymnastics, etc. Now, neither Vince, nor any of the great dunkers made their dunks look to easy- otherwise they'd be boring. It is in fact the most difficult dunks that look the sickest. Take alley-oops; it's always the bad alley oop passes that are too far from the basket that are transformed into history making dunks by great athletes. When watching Vince in a game, but especially in that legendary contest, you have a feeling of confidence watching him. You just don't feel like he's going to miss or screw it up. Everyone else- JRich, Mason, Francis (I love you bro but...) when they go up in the competition you can tell that they're doing something only barely within their ability and they're hoping to get lucky and make the dunk this time. Now, even if Vince was doing something only barely within his ability, you still didn't feel like it watching him. I think I have to agree with everyone else that it's the power combined with the grace. You don't finish a dunk with power unless you're confident you'll get it. The sickest dunks in the world are just something more within the reach of Vince than anybody else, and you can feel it. In a weird way I feel almost honored to have watched that dunk contest, like I was watching history. People have been dunking for decades, it seemed like everyone had done everything, the NBA had even cancelled the contest for a bit because it had gotten stale, players were just trying to reproduce historic dunks. Then Vince does three, THREE dunks that had never been done before. Almost as amazing as watching those dunks was watching the reactions on the players faces- Shaq, Garnett, everyone. They completely lost their sh*t, jaw hitting the ground, jumping into the air. They absolutely could not believe that what they just saw really happened.
