Shooting guard Tuesdays: Victor Oladipo’s other dunk contest
By Tony East
Victor Oladipo will be participating in the dunk contest during All-Star weekend. Let’s look back at his first dunk contest performance.
The New York Knicks came to Bankers Life Fieldhouse Sunday to play a basketball game. Well, it was supposed to be a basketball game, but Victor Oladipo seemed to think it was more of a dunk contest.
Oladipo finished the game with four dunks, as many as he will have in the dunk contest if he reaches the finals. After the game, he said that the highlight plays were no indication of what he is going to do Saturday night. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” he said, but he implied that the dunks in the game were just for fun.
But you can’t blame people for thinking he was warming up for the dunk contest with plays like this:
Flashy, silky, and smooth. That dunk had all the makings of a dunk contest winner. He also murdered Kyle O’Quinn on a dunk later in the game, but unfortunately, he won’t be dunking on anyone during all-star weekend.
So according to Vic, that dunk isn’t a good indicator of what he is going to do this weekend. However, we can look at how he performed in past dunk contests to see what moves he may break out.
Oladipo participated in the event in 2015, finishing second to the high flying Zach LaVine. He advanced to the finals after posting better scores than Giannis Antetokounmpo and Mason Plumlee.
He started off the contest with his only perfect score, getting a 50 on a sick 360 reverse dunk:
He followed it up with an alley-oop from Elfrid Payton off the side of the backboard;
He received a 39 on this dunk, and that score combined with the 50 from the first dunk was enough to put him in the finals against LaVine.
On his first dunk of the overtime frame, he tried to jump over Payton and grab the ball from him while simultaneously nailing a behind the back dunk. He failed, as that is an incredibly challenging maneuver:
That miss ultimately only gave him a score of 31, which all but sealed his loss.
On his last dunk, he started by trying to throw the ball up to himself and catch it for a one-handed 360, but he was unable to pull it off. Instead, he had Elfrid Payton throw it off the back of the backboard while he came from behind and soared under the backboard for a dunk:
That dunk resulted in a score of 41, not nearly enough to take down the freakishly athletic Lavine.
What did we learn? We learned that Oladipo likes two things: spinning his body and getting his teammates involved. Maybe Domantas Sabonis will help him throw down a crazy dunk since they are trade buddies who will spend all of All-Star weekend hanging out together.
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Ultimately, we have no idea what tricks Oladipo is going to break out in the dunk contest. Given how athletic he is, we do know that whatever he does, it will be spectacular.