Terrence Ross pulled out the Vince Carter Raptors throwback jersey, then did a throwback Vince Carter dunk. Then he did a not-very-far throwback dunk of Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan. Then he dunked over a kid. All the while Toronto’s own Drake was jumping around in the first row like a giddy 12-year-old boy.
It all worked. The Raptors Terrence Ross is your 2013 NBA All-Star Dunk Contest champion.
“I think it’s paying homage to the guys who did this before me,” Ross said. “DeMar has been here before, tried to take his advice and honor him.”
Let’s be honest — this wasn’t a great dunk contest, maybe not even a good one. Ross shouldn’t have even been in the finals — he got a pretty generous perfect score on his first dunk after a few misses. Still the night it had its moments and Ross had enough of them.
His two dunks in the final round were quality. First was where he put on the Vince Carter throwback — he and a lot of guys his age (22) idolize Carter — then took a pass off the side of the backboard, turned 360 and slammed it. The second one he did was a a between the legs dunk over what everyone thought was a local ball boy but Evans said it was the son of one of Twitters founders and it was all set up by Ross’ agent.
“I told him the day before that I was going to jump over him, but I never told him I was going to go between the legs,” Ross said. “He was kind of nervous. When I first grabbed him he said, ‘You’re not going to hit me, right?’ I said ‘No, I’m not going to hit you.’ I had to calm his nerves.
There were some other great dunks that night. Gerald Green’s first dunk best of the night, off side of backboard, might well have been the best of the night. He tried an ambitious second dunk — he took off the net so he could do a double dunk, dunking, catching it and dunking again on one leap — but he couldn’t do it in the time allowed. He did it after that once. It was impressive but the judges had made their call and he was toast.
Knick and YouTube dunk sensation Jeremy White was a bust on the big stage. Which was disappointing.
Kenneth Faried’s second dunk — off the backboard and through the legs — was impressive.
Eric Bledsoe had a caught a high bouncing ball and turned it into an impressive reverse.
The other guy in the mix late was Jeremy Evans. Early on he dunked over a seated Mark Eton in a nod to Jazz history, and he dunked two balls, which got him into the finals.
There he had a pretty unique dunk — a lefthanded windmill over a covered painting, then he went back and unveiled the painting, which was of him dunking over a covered painting. It was a painting Evans himself had done. Then he signed it. Not the best dunk I’ve ever seen but it was different. Evans final dunk was taking a lob from a seated Dahntay Jones where Evans seemed to defy gravity for a second.
They were good, they were not good enough.
This was Toronto’s night.