Islam Dunk

NBA All-Star Saturday Night has been a favorite of mine for a long time. Except for a couple of years ago (I totally forgot about it and drunken-stumbled into a bar on Amsterdam just in time to watch Nate Robinson make a mockery of the whole thing), I've made a nice little habit of chilling at home to watch skills, 3's and dunks.

Last night I almost made the mistake of watching the Celebrity game. OK, I did make the mistake of watching it, but only for about 10 minutes. That was long enough to catch Bill Walton playing grab-ass with Alyssa Milano on camera.

The Skills Challenge was kinda lame this year. Jason Kidd couldn't make a shot to save his life, and Dwynaye Wade looked like one of Jim Carroll's teammates after they took the downers at halftime.

I missed most of the Three-Point Shootout—I was finishing up our taxes (L.J. = $$$!!!).

Let's just say the Slam Dunk Contest was well worth the wait. No kidding, Dwight Howard is fucking unbelievable. Terrifying, actually. In case you missed it:

1. bounces ball of back of glass and slams
2. dons Superman cape and obscenely stuffs ball thrown from behind glass—about three feet above rim
3. (tough to explain) taps to self off glass with left hand and dunks with right, all in mid-air
4. grabs ball out of mini-hoop on backboard and dunks

Unbelievable.

Gerald Green did some cute stuff, like blowing out a birthday cupcake while dunking and then dunking in his socks. This kind of thing might work some years, but not this one. The only way to beat Dwight this year was to rip the backboard down.

The "SLAM DUNK" logo in the corner of the screen was right next to a mini "NBA" logo, so it ended up looking like "ISLAM DUNK".