Watch: Ja Morant shoots Victor Wimpanyama in one of the most amazing dunks ever, but that wasn’t in the cards.
Victor Wembanyama may be the most imposing rim protector NBA date. He’s only in his second season, but his combination of elite athleticism for his size, excellent shot-blocking instincts, and ridiculous eight-foot wingspan make him a nearly impenetrable obstacle to drives to the basket. Case in point: The 7-foot-3 Wembanyama beat the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday… In the first half.
Therefore, it is fair to classify any blog post as newsworthy. When does a 6-foot-2 guard do it? It’s a clear win for the year’s nominee… even if it doesn’t technically count.
This is the scenario. With 2:10 remaining in the fourth quarter of Memphis’ 129-115 win over San Antonio, Stephon Cassel committed a personal foul that stopped the game. However, the ball was in Ja Morant’s hands, and stopping is not one of his strengths. Keep playing. So did Wimbanyama, who took turns in front of the basket to keep Morant away. It didn’t work.
Probably the most amazing dunk that has ever been counted during NBA In the game, Morant threw the ball through the rim over Wimpanyama’s head.
Other players have dunked at Wimpanyama before. Zach Eddy did Earlier in this gamefor example, but he is one of the few players in the NBA who has similar physical dimensions to the San Antonio star at 7-foot-4. Coby White is another point guard To drown himbut White is 6-foot-5, and Wimbanyama was late in the rotation anyway, so he doesn’t really qualify as an official poster.
But Morant is more than a foot shorter than Wimpanyama, and didn’t need a late turnover to put him down.
Now, there’s an important question to answer here before we consider where this dunk falls in the hierarchy of highlights of the season: Was it a dunk at all? Well, that depends on your definition of diving. Morant’s hands didn’t make contact with the rim. Rather, he threw the ball through it. If you call the rim for the dunk to be officially called a “dunk,” it is a type of variation of the layup.
In this case, though, Blake Griffin’s famous jam over Timofey Mozgov or Dwight Howard’s “Superman” in the 2008 Dunk Contest would also be layups. An alternative definition of dunk, perhaps based on the direction in which the hand launching the ball was moving, seems more plausible.
In the end, though, whether it was a dunk or not didn’t matter. So was the fact that he wasn’t counted on the stat sheet. We watch basketball in large part to see the best athletes in the world do impossible things like this. Morant delivered on Wednesday, perhaps the highlight of his illustrious career.
