Strong Mandibles

Carter, Weis, 2000: I still don't understand how most of the spectators in the background of this photo keep their mandibles from dropping.

2000 Summer Olympics - Gold Medal - Team USA Since 1992 - Photos - SI.com

A Shower of Glass

This doesn't exactly qualify as breaking news, but what M.J. did 23 years ago was certainly shattering:



This happened in Trieste (Italy) August 25 of 1986, in a Nike exhibition game featuring Stefanel Trieste vs Juve Caserta. Michael Jordan scored 30 points. The priceless music was inserted afterward. It's interesting to note in those days of early international marketing, evidentally star NBA players would sometimes play with foreign teams.


Here's a parting shot from Youtube's Monsieur AceMasterBeanSkin:
"somewhere in the world today there is a 22 year old, half-Jordan half-Italian walking around, cause you know when you break a backboard, you get laid."

Sweetest Dunk by Player Over 35 in History?

I'd vote a resounding yes.
36-year-old Grant Hill, who was a 1996 gold medalist, must have drunk deeply of the elixir of youth for this one.
He unleashes a flood of fury upon poor Noah's head.



The above highlight made me search on highlights from Hill's, er, golden years.
I had forgotten how utterly sweet Grant was in the '90s. His balance was impeccable; he weilded it like a ginsu knife when cutting down the opposition's lane...

Japanese Men Eager to Fly?

Many Japanese love American basketball superstars - Jordan, LeBron, Wade... hell, one - Kobe - is even named after a Japanese city (and a type of steak). The Japanese welcomed 24 nations to their homeland during the 2006 Basketball World Championships but reserved special love for the super-athletic American celebrities.

The amount of adulation doesn't differ much if you go across the sea to China or Korea, but China at least has its own NBA players to adulate. Japan, though, has only one former NBA player - Yuta Tabuse, whose official blog looks considerably better than his game.

In the video below, a couple of things are obvious:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

1) Japanese game show audiences relish mounting tension.

2) While I have never seen a Japanese player actually dunk, that doesn't mean there isn't some collective chip on the nation's ego summoning some of its bravest to venture a 30-foot, trampoline-fueled flight across a game show stage for a prize, yes, but - more importantly - validation that the Japanese people need not always look to America for basketball highlights.

Continental Creme de la Dunk Kings

As mentioned in an earlier post, Victor Claver is one of the up and coming small forwards in Spain. How up this Iberian pogo-stick can actually get is now fully viewable in this footage of an ACB dunk contest.


And who's the African guy throwing dunks with vicious regularity?
That's 19-year old Serge Ibaka, a 2008 draft pick who could become the sickest slammer to ever play in a European leage.