Slam Dunk Conspiracy

Andre Iguodala was squawked! Nate Robinson is a terrific athlete and his dunk using Spud Webb as a prop was impressive. Unfortunately, he had a couple dunks that were Chris Andersen-esk. His last dunk received a 47/50 on his 14th attempt. The throw was the most difficult portion of the dunk. It's the Rising Stars Slam Dunk Contest. If it were the Little Guys Alley-Oop Throwing Contest, I'd have Steve Nash as the favorite.

Nate Robinson performed very well. But, Josh Smith took off from the free throw line (maybe a couple inches closer than Brent Barry did en route to victory a decade ago) and dunked with two hands, easily. He got a 41! I've never seen anyone take off from that far and dunk with two hands.

Nate Robinson grew up in Seattle and attended the University of Washington, in Seattle. Perhaps, the judges were scoring with a "West Coast bias" to lift the WA native over the Philadelphia, PA (Pittsburgh just happens to be in the same state as Philly) contestant. We are just a couple weeks removed from the Super Bowl officiating fiasco.

Andre Iguodala should have been given the benefit of the doubt based on his 2nd round dunk with an assist from the original AI. He took off from behind the baseline, caught the pass bounced off the back of the backboard, ducked his head so he didn't cream himself on the backboard, and dunked the ball. Ridiculous! Then, he pulled out two more great dunks, the behind the back transfer off the bounce and the between the legs from right to left jumping off his left foot. Those are dunks I've never seen.

Don't penalize a great dunker who combines tremendous athleticism and ingenuity because a 5'9" guy is in the competition and finally got a few nice dunks down. It's just not right. The dunk contest should be here to stay, but it needs a little revision, specifically more dunks and competent judges (the judges were looking at each other's scores to help decide what they should put up). AI got squawked.