Anfernee Simons Channeled These Iconic Throwback Jams En Route To Winning The Dunk Contest
As Anfernee Simons tells it, only one of his three efforts en route to winning the AT&T Slam Dunk contest was a direct homage to previous participants.
A huge Tracy McGrady fan while growing up in suburban Orlando, the Trail Blazers guard had long planned on paying tribute to his childhood "hero." But any notion that Simons' two other dunks on Sunday were inspired by memorable slams from contests past was dispelled after he was crowned the event's winner.
"Yeah, thinking of different ways I can showcase [my leaping ability] in a creative way, using the mini hoop to show how high I can jump," Simons said of his dunk contest strategy. "It's a creative way to show my athleticism. And the T-Mac tribute actually was something I just wanted to do because T-Mac was my hero growing up, so I wanted to honor him with a dunk, as well."
The McGrady homage, obviously, speaks for itself. During the legendary 2000 dunk contest, won by Vince Carter in instant-classic fashion, McGrady pulled off a 360-degree double-pump self lob, a mirror image of the same dunk that Simons donned his jersey for in Atlanta.
Simons' first dunk earned a 46 from the judges, three points lower than his best McGrady impression.
The judging of Sunday's event was a hot-button topic. While most hand-wringing about the judges' scoring centered around Cassius Stanley, Simons' initial offering was arguably more impressive than his second – especially considering the rarified air the 6-foot-3 guard reached to grab the ball from the top of the backboard square before finishing.
Then again, Dwight Howard's sticker dunk from the 2009 contest also didn't earn the sky-high score it should have. The judges, apparently, just don't know how to grade dunks that highlight a contestant's maximum vertical reach first and foremost.
The signature kiss of Simons' contest-winning dunk evokes Michael Jordan's iconic slam from 1987, when he puckered up to the rim in midair.
But a more similar slam from prior contests is Gerald Green's "cupcake" dunk, another that fans and judges alike initially had trouble grasping.
After being crowned dunk contest king, Simons said future participants paying homage to his showcase on Sunday would be "one of the highlights of my career." As the direct and indirect inspirations behind each of his dunks make clear, it seems only a matter of time.