What do Bill Russell, John Wooden and Michael Jordan have in common? Well first of all none of them has ever come to visit me on Christmas Day or any other day for that matter so they have a lot in common but the basketball denominator is the slam dunk.
John Wooden, the infamous Wizard of Westwood won ten NCAA Championships in 12 years, a feat that probably never will be matched again. Consider Duke and Indiana won 3 championships in their best 12 year span since the great UCLA teams of the 60's dominated the collegiate hardwood and prior to UCLA's dominance Kentucky won 4 championships during their best 12 year span. Even more powerful no collegiate team outside of John Wooden's Bruins ever won more than two titles in a row. UCLA under "The Coach" won an unprecedented 7 straight from 1967-1973. Although Wooden's teams had two of the great dominant big men of the late 60's and early 70's with Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton the dunk was never a part of the UCLA game plan. The plan was to play team basketball, concentrate on the fundamentals, and play hard for 40 minutes or until the final buzzer sounded. Wooden's teams were moved the ball around with precision passing, and the players were constantly in motion with or without the ball causing defensive problems for the opposition. Wooden's teams were a YouTube.com nightmare. No dunks! The highlights were fast breaking layups, open look jump shots, and back door cuts for easy baskets. Fundamentals were crucial to the success of the NCAA's greatest teams of all-time.
Bill Russell if the younger generation does not know this name by anything other than the current NBA Finals MVP trophy knows as the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP trophy at 6'9" and the centerpiece of the great Boston Celtics of the 50's and 60's actually never was much of a dunker. Russell did win 11 NBA Championships though during his 13 year career added to his two collegiate titles in 1955-56 as the University of San Francisco Don's center plus a Olympic Gold Medal at the 1956 summer games. Bill Russel not only didn't have much use for the slam dunk but was also a YouTube.com reject in that his prowess as a shot blocker rarely ever sent a ball flying out of bounds but would deftly reject shots into the direction of his teammates often leading the team to an easy two at the other end of the court. Russell also never averaged more than 18.9 points in any season.
Michael Jordan considered by many as the greatest player to ever play in the NBA really didn't have much use for the slam dunk either. Sure Jordan has his silhouette adorned to Nike shoes and clothing and he did win a slam dunk title in 1988 en route to an All-Star MVP performance but the dunk was never really that valuable to one of the NBA greats. Heck, Jordan was dunked on by John Starks in the 1993 playoffs that sent that put the Knicks ahead of the Bulls 2-0 but would eventually the lead would discipate over the course of the next four games as Chicago finished off the Knicks in 6 with a avalanche of turn-around fade aways, defense, and more fundamentals that would lead Chicago to it's third straight NBA title. So much for the Starks dunk it was useless but did get a few night of air time before the Bulls went on to claim the all-important Larry O'Brein trophy for the NBA champions.
Jordan's illustrious career can be defined by two eras. The high flying slam dunking scoring machine from 1984-1989 including his slam dunk title and than the 1990's when Jordan increased his assist numbers along with team play that led to six titles in the six full years that Jordan played from 1991 through 1998.
Point is it's always good to take notice of the greats of the game on how the game should be played. Concentrate on the fundamentals and a long NBA career is more apt to happen as opposed to honing up on your slam dunking skills to make YouTube.com highlights. Don't get me wrong you can get a fine playground legend reputation but that doesn't pay the bills, it doesn't put you in front of the big crowds, and you will never compete against the best. In the past month camera phones and video recorders have caught a freshman from the University of Kentukcy slamming on Jerry Stackhouse of the Dallas Mavericks and a junior from Xavier University slamming on King James, Lebron James. It's created quite the buzz but really the footage is poor and not quite up to the NBA's caliber of cameras dating back thirty years and there doesn't seem to be very big crowds either.
So......who cares? Unless your goal is to be the next "Kimbo" Slice and beat up bums on YouTube.com than get into the ring with a real Mixed Martial Artist only to get knocked out in 12 seconds the whole slam dunking doesn't mean squat for either the Kentucky fresman or the Xavier junior because Jerry Stackhouse has had a long career in the NBA earning multiple millions of dollars where he can retire very comfortably in extreme luxury and "King James" will continue to scare just about everyone in the NBA outside of Kobe Bryant every time he brings the ball down the court. He will end up in the NBA Hall of Fame and probably win a few NBA championships along the way. The slam dunk was just a kid with some hops getting a good angle and the King didn't feel like putting his body in the way during a summer pick up game.
I wonder if there were video recorders and YouTube.com around during one of the greatest baseball players of all time Babe Ruth would they have been getting headlines every time he struck out. News flash the Babe struck out 1,330 times! It's not that big of a deal and all of those pitchers that might have struck him out could have been YouTube phenoms in today's era but also remember the Babe hit .342 off of these guys, popped 714 home runs, knocked in a whopping 2200 plus runs, and had a plethora of other offensive records against guys that struck him out. Oh, yeah even the Babe never slam dunked.
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