This is you. Get out there and do it. I don't know, man. And I thought, "Oh, OK. And a guy like Vince -- he may have appeared to be not very confident, but at the same time, he got out there and when the lights went on he rose to the occasion.
The contest began with Hughes missing his first dunk. Then McGrady, tossing the ball up to himself, flushed home a killer reverse leapfrog slam that got the crowd to its feet. Next was Francis' turn. With no real dunk planned, he scanned the court, drew inspiration and improvised. He lobbed the ball to himself but could not catch it cleanly. Instead, soaring to the hoop as the ball rolled off his right hand, he threw it in off the bounce almost with his wrist.
The arena roared. Francis: When I walked out the locker room -- they have footage of it -- I said something slightly to my brother. I said, "I'm about to throw it up from half court.
And I see them right there, and that alone gave me enough adrenaline to do what I did. James Posey forward, Denver Nuggets : Going in, you hear so much about Vince Carter, and you see so many of his highlights on ESPN it was like, now that he's in the slam dunk competition, what could he come up with that we hadn't seen? I just remember sitting courtside there with Shaq, KG. Everybody had their camcorders out ready just to take in everything. Miller: I asked [Stackhouse] who he's got in this, and he said, "I'm going with Vince.
He's got the liveliest legs out here, and I've seen him and T-Mac huddled up so they're planning something. I was fired up to be there. You feel it because it's all about the excitement of the call; it's a little tough on the throat.
But that one was worth it. Brand: I'm kind of in a race [for rookie of the year] with Steve Francis, but we worked out together at Maryland, so that's who I'm rooting for to win the slam dunk contest. Miller: Vince and I, before we even [went on] air, I was giving him a hard time. Like, "Come on, Vince. How serious are ya? I'm going to have people shaking their heads. So I'm thinking, 'shaking their heads'? So what type of Carter took to the court for his first dunk that night with no true plan.
The slam he had prepared to open with he instead decided to use second in his routine. For his debut, he thought back to a dunk he had done only two or three times before in his life. It was a risk. He had barely completed the slam when he practiced it. Vince Carter: I just remember they called my name. I was a little nervous, and as I got the ball, I'm thinking, "Final decision: yea or nay? As his NBA peers ringed the court, Carter approached the hoop from the left, took a few power dribbles and rose from the floor.
He launched into a degree turn, only he was spinning the wrong way, rotating the unnatural direction for a right-handed dunker. No matter, for he completed his revolution while simultaneously windmilling the ball before stuffing it through the hoop with a ferocity nearly unseen before.
It was the first perfect score -- a 50 -- of the night. Miller: It was like a huge tsunami in the arena. Oh, my gosh! Williams: To come out of the gate with that -- everybody was like, "Whoa, wait a minute! Wait a minute! Their jaws were on the floor. They just couldn't believe what they were seeing. Allen Iverson guard, Philadelphia 76ers : There weren't any words that you could really control that came out of your mouth once you saw it, you know what I mean?
It was basically, "Oh, my god," or, "Wow, did you see that? Nowitzki: The crowd was just going nuts. I think I punched somebody in the ribs. After the dunk, Carter let out a primal scream, the reaction to his doing the best execution of a dunk he had scarcely completed before the contest. Vince Carter: I didn't hear anything. The yell -- it was so loud, it was like I was in a box screaming with nobody else there.
I just went numb for a second. That dunk I did in San Antonio. Barely made it. So that's why I scratched [it]. That dunk was a scratch. But then all of a sudden, I was like, "The hell with it. Let's go. And I just felt like I gained two, three inches [when I jumped]. When I took off and turned around, the rim was right here [at eye level]. It took minutes for the crowd to calm down, long enough for Stackhouse and Davis to complete their first-round dunks in relative anonymity.
All anyone cared about was Carter and what he would do next, but two competitors, McGrady and Francis, did not wilt away. For their second-round dunks, McGrady uncorked a two-handed windmill alley-oop while Francis showed off perhaps his best dunk of the night -- an alley-oop where he leaned in toward the basket, cocked the ball back toward his ankles and threw it in. McGrady received a 49, Francis a Carter's second dunk was the slam he originally planned for the first round.
Starting from behind the basket, he ran straight toward half-court and then, stopping abruptly a step inside the baseline, he rose, spun to face the basket and windmilled the ball through again. Four of the judges raised a One, Kenny Smith, did not.
Miller: We're like, "Are you kidding me? We were killing him. Danny [Ainge, broadcasting the event for TNT] was killing him.
I'm in my producer's ear during the commercial break. I'm like, "Kenny, are you crazy? Just put down the pipe and back away from it. The one thing Kenny did say was that first dunk Vince did set the bar so high that it's like he did it to himself. Vince Carter: I was definitely going for a perfect night.
That was my goal, and he spoiled it for me. Entering the third round, McGrady, Francis and Carter had already clinched a spot in the finals, and so there was a general sense they should perform an easy slam and save their best dunks. Francis missed his third-round dunk, but McGrady let loose his best jam of the night. From straight on, he tossed the ball in the air and caught it in a degree turn, pumping the ball between his legs for good measure.
It was an emphatic 50 and would have been a much bigger deal were it not for what happened next. Part of the dunk contest's rules in stated that at least one of each participant's first-round slams had to come with the aid of a teammate. Going in, Carter wasn't fully aware of the stipulation.
Vince Carter: They didn't quite tell us about the partner thing, so we didn't practice that at all. I didn't know. So I was like, "What the heck could I do? So I said, "OK, I'm gonna try it. About this high. On Carter's middle finger that night were stitches from an injury earlier in the regular season, so he had concern whether he could complete his dunk.
His vision was to catch McGrady's bounce pass in midair, pass the ball from his left hand to his right hand through his legs and slam it through. As he rose off the floor to try the dunk, a funny thing happened: The NBA players courtside began to recognize what he was trying.
The roar started before he could finish the slam. Reggie Theus sideline reporter, TNT : When he got up, he was already way in the air, but as he threw the ball between his legs, it was almost like doing the wave.
You could see the guys. All of a sudden they were starting to build. They were standing and grabbing, and all of a sudden [Vince] came back around and flushed it on the other side. And everybody just erupted. There was just a frenzy when that happened. Miller: In my ear, I could just hear Kenny. Kenny Smith was going crazy, like, "That's a wrap! That's it! Albert: It went crazy. They went nuts. We're so accustomed at those events to see the players -- it's kind of a jocular-type atmosphere at those Saturday night festivities.
So the players are loose and they all react and overreact to it, but that was genuine reaction. They could not believe what he did. James Duthie broadcaster, TSN : As soon as the ball went through the mesh, it was as loud as anything I'd ever been a part of. Everyone was kind of doing what Shaq and Garnett and [Chris] Webber were doing, where they put their arms out like the old Fred Sanford "I'm coming to join ya, Elizabeth" thing, where they had their hands on their heart.
People were falling over chairs and jumping over chairs. Cooper: We [became] part of the fans. We don't want to judge this. We wanted to share in the excitement. And that's when Isiah -- Isiah's crazy -- he jumped right over the [judge's] table. We're like, "Maybe you need to be in the dunk contest.
It's like -- I'm a fan. There's an old saying in my neighborhood where I grew up. They used to say when you get shot, it was like, "It shot bolts through my heart, baby. Brand: I was just trying to hype [Steve] up, like, "Let's go.
But ya did good, man. Rick Barry judge, NBA Slam Dunk Contest : Thank god for slow motion, because it happened so fast I don't think you really, truly appreciate how incredible the dunk was until you watch it in slow motion. Jed Jacobsohn photographer, Getty Images : It was a pretty dynamic moment photographically. I had one frame that pretty much sums it up. And there was this, "Oh, my god! Oh, my god! Steele: [Laughs. I just remember being in shock.
I just remember yelling a lot, a sort of a combination of yell and laugh. My laugh tends to carry. Wise: When you've got reporters falling over themselves, which in some cases we were, you know you've upped the ante for the event. Some of the most cynical, jaded sports writers who had covered 10 of these are sitting there looking at each other and falling over each other. There was a part of us that it was all sort of like we were in front of televisions as kids watching Julius Erving take off from the free throw line again.
It was one of those moments where it almost transported you back to when you started following the game. Cooper: There was a sense that we needed to have a new scoring scale for Vince Carter. Once you gave him a 10, you're like, "OK, what next? Now we're going to the 13s and the 15s.
The dunk was a perfect Once he landed, Carter extended both arms upward, one cocked at the elbow, the other straight, and pointed to the sky -- a kind of Usain Bolt salute eight years before the Jamaican sprinter would win gold in Beijing.
As he walked back toward center court, Carter waved his arms and, to the camera, mouthed his most famous words of the night: "It's over. Vince Carter: Never practiced it. Never tried it in my life. Once it went through it was like, "Thank you, God. Nowitzki: I remember [his] pose. I still make fun of his pose once in a while.
In warm-ups [with Dallas, where Carter now plays], sometimes I squeak [a dunk] in over my fingernails and I point up to the Jumbotron and say, "It's over. But, yeah, it was over at that point. To many, it was over. Before long, he was posterizing all the great centers in the game before they knew what had hit them. It got to a point where people would duck or sway out of his path to remove themselves from highlights. Vince had a truly unmatched turn of speed and direction, in addition to being able to jump off and elevate from either or both feet.
Also Read — Alexandra Stevenson was born because her mother had braces! Gilbert Arenas talked about Vince Carter and what he could potentially have been in a recent podcast with Josiah Johnson.
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