There is nothing like the sound of a slam dunk–not the dunk itself, even though a number of arenas are now miking the hoops and broadcasting the sound over the PA, but the roar of the crowd in response. There is something both joyful and violent in that roar, an appreciation for the beauty of the feat but also for the humiliation it wreaks upon an opponent. A dunk triggers the same sort of unbridled in-your-face ecstasy as a smartly landed punch in boxing, with all of the sadism but none of the guilt.
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Yet oddly enough the most breathtaking player in the game never dunked once–unless he snuck one in when I was looking elsewhere. Shaun Livingston, who just led Peoria Central to the Illinois Class AA boys’ basketball championship, is a tall, thin player, a fluid six-foot-seven point guard with long ropelike arms, and although on this night he’d abandoned his signature 70s-style Afro for cornrows, he couldn’t have made himself look typical if he’d tried. From start to finish, Livingston displayed the rare court sense possessed by greats like Kevin Garnett or Magic Johnson, along with an almost regal but never cocky awareness of his own abilities. It was Livingston, dominating his much shorter East-squad counterpart Josh Wright on both ends of the floor, who led the West out to an early lead and asserted his team’s dominance. On one fast break he burst out and made an effortless pass ahead through traffic to Joakim Noah, the six-foot-ten-inch son of former tennis great Yannick Noah, and though Noah muffed the dunk, seven-foot-one Robert Swift cleaned up with a rebound slam to put the West up 9-2. Moments later Livingston drove easily around Wright, pulled up, and hit an 18-foot jump shot–all sweet straight backspin–to make it 18-5. When, standing flat-footed running the squad’s half-court offense, he suddenly reared back and fired a blind pass to the wide-open Swift under the basket, turning to walk nonchalantly back down the court without even waiting to see Swift’s uncontested dunk, it was the piece de resistance. With the West up 20-7, the game was all but over, and it wasn’t even halfway through the first quarter.
Yet what an exhibition. With the A teams back on the floor to open the second quarter, the East’s Wright hung up a perfectly timed alley-oop pass on a fast break to six-foot-nine Josh Smith of Georgia, who delivered a high-speed jam that left him hanging on the rim like a sack of mail. New Jersey’s six-foot-six J.R. Smith, who’d been practicing his repertoire of jams during warm-ups, rose to the occasion with a double-pump dunk, later adding a one-handed alley-oop jam as well as a spinning 360-degree slam on a breakaway. He made a few jump shots too, and his 16 points–augmented by his slam-dunking style points–earned him MVP honors for the East squad, overshadowing the ballyhooed six-foot-eleven Dwight Howard, a broad-shouldered Georgian who’s expected to be the top high school player chosen in the NBA draft this summer. Howard hadn’t practiced during the week, complaining of a balky back, and though he too scored 16 points in addition to pulling down 12 rebounds, he seemed to take most of the night off. If he winds up with the Bulls he’ll fit right in.
