Kid's stuff
wins dunk contest
CLEVELAND -- Teenager Kobe Bryant fulfilled a childhood dream while still a child by
winning the slam-dunk contest to cap the All-Star Saturday events. Bryant, who spurned
college to enter the NBA at the age of 18, executed a through-the-legs hammer dunk moving
from left to right for a final-round score of 49, easily outpointing Michael Finley and
Chris Carr.
"Winning the dunk contest is something I dreamed about since I was a little
kid," said the Los Angeles Lakers guard, who jumped straight from high school to the
NBA.
In many ways, Bryant still is a kid.
It was just four years ago that Bryant, then 14, dunked for the first time in his life.
Less than a year ago, he was going to his senior prom with pop star Brandy, who was at the
competition.
In June, he joined the Lakers. And in November, he became the youngest player at that
time to ever appear in an NBA game.
Age, however, wasn't the determining factor in the dunk contest. It had more to do with
style.
And Bryant added a dominant dose of stylin' following his best dunk of the night.
On Bryant's winning jam, he ran toward the basket, jumped into the air, passed the ball
between his legs and finished it off with a right-handed windmill.
But that wasn't the end.
Bryant strutted over to the bench where all the regular All-Stars sat, assumed a
bodybuilder flex pose and pursed his lips into a pucker.
The All-Stars, some of them nearly twice as old as this precocious youngster,
absolutely loved it.
"Man, that part was sweet," Alonzo Mourning said.
It was a pose Bryant first assumed in his last dunk contest -- a high school dunk-off
held in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
"The crowd got me real pumped up after the dunk, and I just felt like flexing. I
don't have much, but I flexed what I have.
"I don't do that kind of stuff in a game, only in a dunking competition,"
Bryant added.
Bryant scored a record 31 points in the Rookie Game earlier Saturday but was beaten out
for MVP honors by Philadelphia 76ers guard Allen Iverson.
Bryant left no doubt in the dunk competition, however.
He said not winning the MVP in the Rookie Game served as extra motivation in the dunk
contest.
"Both of them would have been nice," Bryant said. "I was psyched for the
dunk contest as it was, but (not being MVP) brought me up a little bit more."
Bryant, the son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, became the second consecutive
second-generation NBA player to win the contest. Last year, Los Angeles Clippers guard
Brent Barry, the son of Hall of Famer Rick Barry, took the trophy.
But there were no court-length dashes and foul-line dunks this year. Most of the slams
were of the toss-bounce-and-catch variety, including one by Finley in the finals in which
he did a cartwheel before catching the ball, drawing the biggest cheers. He missed the
wild attempt.
Carr, a swingman for the Minnesota Timberwolves, made both his dunks in the final round
but scored no higher than 45 on either one. Finley, a Dallas Mavericks guard, missed both
his final-round dunks. The two were teammates last season with the Phoenix Suns.
Hometown favorite Bob Sura of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Denver Nuggets rookie forward
Darvin Ham and Milwaukee Bucks rookie guard Ray Allen were eliminated after the first
round.
Bryant barely got to the final round with a qualifying score of 37, beating out Ham by
one point. Ham was the only one of the six participants to make all three of his
first-round slams and appeared to have performed as well as anyone, but the judges gave
him just 36 points.
The win earned Bryant the $20,000 first prize from Nestle's. |