Jamario Moon is guaranteeing a win in tonight’s all-star dunk competition.
The 27-year-old rookie who was getting ready for the CBA playoffs this time last year with the Albany Patroons says he will fly higher, dunk better and ultimately draw more votes from the NBA public to best the likes of Dwight Howard, who nearly won last year’s dunkoff, Gerald Green who did win it, and Memphis high-flyer Rudy Gay, who already has been crowned chief trash talker of the much anticipated event.
"I got it," Moon said. "I’ve got it in my pocket right now." Moon said smiling. "I believe in me and I’m sure those guys believe in what they do. But I think I’ve got some nice dunks. I’ve got a couple (in reserve) in case they do something crazy and make me go a little deeper into the hat. I believe in myself."
Moon, though, says he takes a back seat to Gay when it comes to stirring it up.
"I don’t think Rudy liked my YouTube video," Moon said. "He said he thought I was trying to call him out a little bit. It’s nothing personal."
Kapono’s winning score last year was 24, tying the event record.
"This is the only chance I have to show my kids I was the best at something," Kapono said jokingly. "So when I’m 35, 40, 45 and they’re saying I was a scrub, I can at least say I was the best, for one year. In 2007, I was the three-point champ."
Moon will be attempting to put an exclamation point on his journey from basketball obscurity to a minor version of celebrity as a 27-year-old NBA rookie.
He’ll be enlisting Kapono’s help for one of his dunks, but otherwise the details of his plans for the contest have been closely held secrets.
Nash, along with a heavy-hitting roster of his NBA all-star squad teammates, including Toronto Raptors forward Chris Bosh, spent yesterday afternoon painting and scraping a small gathering of homes edging closer to being livable again, 30 months after the disaster had levelled the already challenged neighbourhood east of the city’s tourist district.
It was raining. And you didn’t have to go far to see vacant lots where homes had been bulldozed or others where flood and then fire had left crumbled husks that are many months and many thousands of dollars away from being places to live again.
If you listened carefully, you could here the sound of water dropping in a bucket in between Nash’s scrapes or Bosh’s enthusiastic use of a roller — no ladders or extensions required — to paint walls of the bedrooms inside the same house.
Andrea Bargnani, who started for the sophomores managed just eight points last night while the other Raptor in the game, rookie, Jamario Moon, was six of eight from the field for the rookies in a 13-point night.
He talked about the CBA and the week or so he spent in Europe. He talked about the other minor leagues and the frustration that mounted as he waited for his shot at the big show.
It was nice and all that and everyone who wanted something from him got it. Except for anyone wondering what he’ll do in tonight’s dunk contest.
All of a sudden, the chatty 27-year-old turned quiet.
"I’m just going to do what I do, man," he said. "Take it as it comes. You’ll just have to watch."
Whatever he’s cooked up in the weeks he’s had to practise is being guarded like a state secret. We do know he could try one in which he leaps from outside the free-throw line, grabs a ball off a bounce and dunks. That one has been in the public domain for a few days.
But other than that, all Moon will give up is that he’ll be "creative."
"You just have to be creative and add your own little funk to it," he said earlier this week. "So that’s what I plan to do."
Even his Raptors teammate Jason Kapono won’t reveal what’s in store as Moon tries to chase the $35,000 (U.S.) first prize. "I can’t tell you, it’s top secret," Kapono said. "It’s right here in this envelope, but I can’t open it for you."
"I’ll say they’ll remember me," Moon said. "I won’t say they’ll forget about the last one (won by a Raptor, Vince Carter in 2000) because he did some great things, but I’m just going to come out and do what I’m supposed to and bring that trophy back to Toronto."
Moon, who has become one of the NBA’s feel-good stories with his rise from the minor leagues to a starting role with the Raptors in one season, has had plenty of time to perfect whatever kind of "creative" dunks he’s got in mind.
He competed in one dunk contest as a high-schooler (losing to Gerald Wallace of the Charlotte Bobcats) and also lost two in his minor-league career.
"I came in third in one and I came in second in the one I was in last year," he said. "I think it was like a hometown thing; any time a hometown guy is in a dunk contest, they always seem to win, but there’s no excuses (in tonight’s, which lacks a hometown favourite). You just have to come out and do what you do."
"It’s hard," he said. "They just say, `Go’. Camera, music, strobe lights going. It’s not really a shooting contest, it’s more of an act, it’s a performance of a play or something."
But there is a science to winning.
Kapono starts on the left hand side of the court if you’re facing the basket so he can move to his right and save time. He says he follows his shot right to the rim so he knows if he’s short, long, wide right or left and he knows what kind of score he wants to post.
"The hardest thing is obviously with the time and the amount of shots, if you don’t start out well, it gets in your head and you start to press," he said. "The biggest thing is you have to be able to fight through a tough rack or a tough start because if you start to press, it could lead to a terrible time."
Ran into Andrea on the street, he looked entirely unimpressed when I asked him how the big day was going.
"Big day? Yeah, I guess,” he said.
How, you may ask, can you tell he was unimpressed? He was even more dour than usual.
Late in the game, we look over at the Sophomore bench and there’s Brandon Roy talking to Andrea Bargnani.
Not sure if the lip-reading skills are up to snuff but we believe Roy said:
"Who’s this Swirsky guy who voted for you.”
-
Among the judges of the D League’s dunk contest: Jerome Williams and Tracy Murray! A truly all-star cast
Physically, Durant has drawn comparisons to Bosh, who was a frail, 6-foot-10 freshman when drafted by Toronto out of Georgia Tech four years ago. Bosh has developed into one of the game’s top inside-outside threats, and the Raptors have become an Eastern Conference contender.
Bosh, who averaged 11.5 points per game as a skinny rookie, has transformed into a more muscular leader.
"People are going to doubt you, and if you are not a certain (physical) way for some reason people think that weight equals strength, but it doesn’t," Bosh said. "You have to get strong, that’s a part of the league. No matter if you get stronger or you don’t, you are going to have to play the games anyway, so you would probably want to dominate guys by being stronger."
Suffice it to say that, so far, the Raptors have been good but not yet good enough to truly scare potential playoff opponents, assuming anyone in the Eastern Conference outside the top five teams can actually claim to be vying for such a role.
Why is that? Perhaps it’s time to abandon simple basketball explanations and take a more diagnostic approach using the methods preferred by Hugh Laurie’s Gregory House character: inventing new and ridiculous diseases.
Here we submit a few lesser-known afflictions and the Raptors who suffer from them.
In this afternoon TV/radio simulcast of his sports talkshow , Bob McCowan asked Raptors basketball Analyst Jack Armstrong how he rates the 1st half performance of Toronto’s basketball team . ‘ They are OK. In the 15 winning teams of the NBA this season , the Raptors will be in the bottom 3rd of the pack ‘ said Jack.That’s why Jack is the half acceptable of the 3 men in the Raptors TV booth . He’s not ultra homer like Chuckie or uber ‘ know it all ‘ like Leo. Jack is OK … like the Raps now ( according to Jack) . I guess , Jack is a glass half full , half empty guy . Or more appropriately , half fool , half empty guy !
Jamario Moon played an unselfish game – especially in the 4TH – passing up a number of opportunities to score on his own. Maybe he was just saving energy for Saturday night.
Meanwhile, the Knicks can take aim at such other historically dreadful teams as the 1966-67 Baltimore Bullets (48 games behind the Sixers); the 1971-72 Portland Trailblazers (51 behind the Lakers); the 1999-2000 Clippers (52 games behind the Lakers); and the 1995-96 Toronto Raptors (51 behind the Bulls).
Related posts:
Andrea is such a sexy beast.
Maybe Moon should have gone deeper into his bag of tricks. His tape manoeuver cost him getting into the finals against Howard.
Gerald Green was completely overrated, IMO. Of course, “the birthday cake” was kinda cool.