Thank You, Dwight Howard

OK, so I was all prepared to write about how useless and meaningless professional All-Star games are now, feeling inspired by watching the uninspiring NBA "skills night."

I was going to write about how uninterested everyone seemed (except for middling Cleveland Cavaliers guard Damon Jones, who seemed to be trying to make a name for himself by wearing a purple velvet suit and faux-hawk [how 2002!] and going crazy after each contestant finished his turn in the three-point shootout; huh?); how they're only an excuse to party for all the athletes (and more importantly and pathetically, the thousands of hangers-on) there; how future Hall-of-Famer Karl Malone didn't deign to look at the camera when it panned to him as a judge for the slam-dunk contest; how when TNT needed celebrity shots, they only had Alyssa Milano, Harry Connick Jr. and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, before the obligatory Spike Lee shot; and how, philosophically, All-Star games are relics of another era, when the money and glitz weren't so obscene, when players didn't hang out with each other and some actively disliked others, and when fans couldn't follow players in faraway cities whenever they wanted, making the games competitive for players and fanciful for fans.

And then the slam-dunk contest started. And Orlando Magic forward Dwight Howard, on his first attempt, began from behind the basket, threw it off the back of the backboard, caught it mid-air as he jumped to the other side and threw it down! I jumped up from the couch and probably said "Oh my god" eight times with my hands on my head. I've never seen that before.

And then Minnesota Timberwolves guard Gerald Green unveiled "The Birthday (Cup)Cake": He balanced a cupcacke on the rim, lit the candle and then dunked while blowing out the candle, before retrieving the cupcake and giving it to the judges! The cupcake -- which looked tasty, by the way -- somehow stayed on the rim despite the force of him throwing the ball in!

And then Howard took off his jersey, revealing a Superman shirt, put on a Superman cape, and then caught a ball thrown by a teammate and dunked it from the foul line. (Well, replays showed he never touched the rim, he actually threw it in with such force and at such an angle, that it seemed like a dunk, and was really cool.)

The videos don't seem to be posted on YouTube yet, so I'll just go with this tape of Howard practicing for the contest. It's a sly promo for Vitamin Water (I think in the ad biz they call that "guerrilla marketing"; Che would be proud), but nonetheless, it features two he broke out tonight and is totally awesome.



Update: This goes to ESPN's highlights of it, which capture most of how amazing it was.

Further Update: Here are the first dunks everyone did, including Howard from behind the basket and Green's birthday cake. The comments from TNT's broadcasters are actually hillarious, genuine and refreshing. You must watch.



I could go on, but I'll just say that Howard deservedly won.

The reason why the dunk contest works -- and baseball's homerun hitting contest never will -- is the dunk is just so viscerally thrilling. What makes the homerun exciting is context: It makes you cheer because of how it changes the game, shifts momentum, wins the game. In the abstract, it's only a ball traveling a long way. (Is this heresy for a lifelong, devoted baseball fan to write?)

But the dunk is an explosion. There is so much force involved (do physicists study it? they should) and so much joy in watching a human body fly like that. It's a beautiful balance of elegance and control and vigor and rawness. It's a smacking sound and a clean whoosh. It's life saying, "Here it is! He we are! Rejoice!"