You can always see the moment online42 years later: Julius Erving of the 76ers of Philadelphia by making his Dunk “Rock The Cradle” of January 1983 against the Los Angeles Lakers. Yes, Dr. I rock the ball in his arm while he goes in the air and slams him at home on Michael Cooper des Lakers.
“It is the biggest dunk of all time,” explains Mike Sielski, Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist.
Sielski has the power to say. He is the author of A recently published bookMagic in air: the myth, the mystery and the soul of the slam dunk.
In its pages, you can relive these protruding points a long time ago from Dr. J. The same goes for The epic battle of 1988 NBA Slam Dunk Contest Between Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins. There is an unforgettable moment of university basketball: Lorenzo Charles Dunking To win the 1983 NCAA championship for NC State on Houston and its Jama Phi Slama list. There are also soft-loving moments: stars defying gravity which, for various reasons, have entered the pros (David Thompson) or who never arrived at all (“Jumpin” Jackie Jackson and Earl “The Goat” Manigault).
The book plunges into the origins of the caliber and the question perhaps unanswered by who was the first in Dunk. The pioneers include Jack Inglis – who would have hung on the cage surrounding a land and would have thrown the ball into the net – and Bernard Dobbas, who was powerful out of the ground also: he would have killed a mountain lion with bare hands. There was also the American Olympian from 1936, Joe Fortenberry, who was from the city of Happy, Texas, Texas.
The story explores the subsequent Dunking call to black players at the time of civil rights, when his best practitioners included Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and a UCLA star named Lew Alcindor. After a second sensational season of the future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the dunk was prohibited and mysteriously forbidden to play in high school and college for almost a decade.
What brought the dunk in favor? Sielski attributes to ABA reached ABA and its popular Slam Dunk competition. The ABA-NBA merger brought experts in calving like Dr. J in the NBA, while a young generation, which included Jordan, created new memories in the Dunk competition. There is also a chapter on women’s basketball pioneers – Georgeann Wells, Charlotte Smith and Sylvia Crawley. The book examines the drop -in drop in soaking today, while noting that there are still NBA players who make it an essential part of their game, Champion of the improbable dunk competition Mac McClung.
“I wanted it to be a fun walk, to feel like a trip,” says Sielski, “where the reader and I went together in different places, different eras, funny things on the history of basketball and tangential tips connected to basketball, so you would appreciate the ride.”
The author made a lot of trip to the book, making several trips on the road. Yes, he went to Happy, Texas, a suburb of Amarillo. There, he met Oliver Fortenberry, whose late father Joe had played for the United States team in the notories of the 1936 matches in Berlin. Sielski was able to hold Joe Fortenberry’s gold medal. He also had a warning to pay attention to the bell snakes.
Then, there was the trip to Raleigh, including a local restaurant with a name honoring the famous coach of the State of NC Jim Valvano – Osteria and Bar by Jimmy V. The score on the wall is still 54-52, the final of the 1983 NCAA championship, decided by the Dunk de Charles. Sielski also visited Murray State, where Morant transformed his soaking skills into a high-man status on campus before leaving the college early for the NBA.
However, there was a trip that the author could not make – to the NCAA offices in Indianapolis. Sielski wanted access to the organization’s presidential archives – in particular, with regard to the deceased president of the NCAA, Walter Byers. Sielski tried to document why the college (and high school) basketball establishment had prohibited the Dunk from 1967 to 1976.
Sielski underlines that 1967 “was a year after Texas Western beat Kentucky for the national championship”, with a whole black that beat five by beating a five-white, “after Lew Alcindor dominated university basketball in his second season (at the UCLA), the only season he could soak the ball legally. Statistically, it was the best season of his university career. You cannot separate this decade (1967-76) and those who have tried to keep sport “as it should be” what was going on in fat society “.
He adds: “The ultimate act of domination on a basketball court is to dive someone. It was an opportunity for black men during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In society as a whole, blacks were fighting for their place and their American dream piece. »»
Formally, the ban was issued by the National Basketball Committee, a supervision group from Disanche for the Lycée and the Collegial Ball. The NCAA, on the other hand, is there, and this is where Sielski made questions by e-mail and was not satisfied with what he received.
“It happened to the point where I said:” Look, if you don’t let me see the documents, I will print our exchange of emails verbatim in the book, everyone can draw their own conclusions, “he said.” I haven’t heard from them since. “
Sielski’s previous book was on Kobe Bryant. After finishing him, he and his agent thought about another project. He said he was inspired by his friend and colleague sports journalist Tyler Kepner K: A History of Baseball in ten locations. He admired a book with chapters that could be read sequentially or at random and, whatever, a good reading.
“I thought of doing something similar thanks to basketball,” says Sielski. “The more I thought of the great moments and the great characters in sport, they were all linked to the ability of Dunk – Jordan, Julius Erving.”
There is an element of mythology in the history of Dunking, notes the author, including the protagonists who were greater than life than life literally and figuratively, whether by height, magic above the edge, or both.
“People like to say that Michael Jordan took off from the line of fault during the 1988 Dunk competition,” said Sielski. “Or that Julius Erving took off from the line of fault during the ABA DUNK competition in 1976. They really did not do so.
The author deplores that the flamboyant myth and game symbolized by the dip gave way to the analytical approach represented by three -point shot.
“It’s so much more analytical,” says Sielski. “The Celtics take and do the most three points from the league … I think the game is suffering for it.”
He sees an antidote in the victories of McClung in the Dunk competition. The book notes that the spectacular Dunks of McClung have obtained millions of views online, while refining a stereotype summarized in the title of a successful film: White Men cannot jump.
“A white guy 6 feet 2 inches, he seems difficult for him,” says Sielski, but adds that McClung can “jump over a car, take a ride at 540 degrees” on the way to a dunk.
In this, there is a link with the big ones of the past.
“Watching it soak the ball goes back to this feeling of wonder, an appreciation of athletics of the athletes, the players who soaked years ago, when it appeared for the first time,” said Sielski.
