Rudy wins dunk contest vote!
by shighkin on Jan 19, 2009 1:48 PM PST
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PrintNBA.com just sent out an email confirming that our own Rudy Fernandez is the winner of the vote for the fourth contestent in the Slam Dunk Contest.
http://www.nba.com/2009/news/01/19/fernandez_relase.09allstar.20090119/index.html
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Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images Fans vote Blazers' Fernandez into Sprite Slam Dunk contest
By Official Release
Posted Jan 19 2009 3:36PM
NEW YORK -- Portland Trail Blazer rookie Rudy Fernandez, a native of Spain, will become the first international player to participate in the Sprite Slam Dunk competition to be held during NBA All-Star Saturday Night Feb. 14, at US Airways Center (8 p.m. ET on TNT) in Phoenix, the NBA announced today. Fernandez was selected as the fourth and final participant exclusively through an online vote on NBA.com, marking the first time fans have had a say in choosing a competitor for the Dunk contest.
More than 500,000 total votes were cast on NBA.com/dunk to determine one of this year's dunkers as part of Sprite's "They Dunk. You Decide" campaign. Fernandez received 251,868 votes, beating out fellow rookies Russell Westbrook (147,279) of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Joe Alexander (114,963) of the Milwaukee Bucks. Fernandez, who is among rookie leaders in scoring, assists, steals, three-point field goal percentage and free throw percentage, will compete against the Orlando Magic's Dwight Howard, the reigning Sprite Slam Dunk champion, the Memphis Grizzlies' Rudy Gay, who participated in last year's contest, and the New York Knicks' Nate Robinson, winner of the 2006 contest in Houston.
Beginning today and running through the 2009 Sprite Slam Dunk contest on Feb. 14, the four participants will appear in a new series of videos previewing what they have in store for the competition and urging fans to vote for them. The videos will be available for fans to watch on various sites including NBA.com/dunk, YouTube, Facebook, and Yahoo! Sports. A series of videos featuring the three rookies eligible for the fourth participant vote garnered more than 2 million views across the same online sites over the course of the three week campaign.
For the second straight year, fans will have the final say in deciding the winner of the competition. Following the concluding round of dunks, fans will be able to cast their votes via SMS TXT message and at NBA.com to determine this year's winner. The dunker with the most fan votes will be named the winner of the Sprite Slam Dunk.
The two dunkers with the highest first round scores will advance to the final round. The dunker with the lowest total score from the first round will compete first in the final round. Dunks then will alternate until each player has completed two. Time limit rules still apply. In the final round, fan voting polls will open via SMS TXT message and at NBA.com. The combined results from SMS TXT voting and NBA.com will determine the champion.
Sprite is the world's leading lemon-lime soft drink and has been the official soft drink of the NBA since 1994.
The Sprite Slam Dunk is part of NBA All-Star 2009, which also includes the T-Mobile Rookie Challenge & Youth Jam; Foot Locker Three-Point Shootout; PlayStation® Skills Challenge; Haier Shooting Stars; NBA All-Star Jam Session presented by adidas; and the 58th NBA All-Star Game.
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250,000 out of 500,000?
With three candidates, that’s a landslide! I think it’s because he said “No, not that guy!”
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Online voting allows an entire country to get behind you
and cause a landslide (i.e. China voting for every Houston player on the all-star ballot + Kobe)
I’m sure that NBA.com got a few hits from Spanish ip’s over the last month. ;)
Why does China vote for Kobe so much???
I bet he doesn’t have as many fans in Eagle, Colorado as he does in China…
by Bust a Bucket on Jan 19, 2009 3:39 PM PST up reply actions
He gave an interview about it during the olympics. He said he thought it was because his name sounds chinese. But he is by far the most popular athlete there
by danielfarrell on Jan 19, 2009 5:36 PM PST up reply actions
As I said in a prior post...
Not only will Rudy win the dunk contest, Roy will be the MVP of the All Star game and Rudy, Oden and Bayless will dominate the Rookie/Sophmore game and will be tri-winners of the MVP for that game.
Rudy for ROY
Campaign 08-09
"Rudy is not everyday a shooter." ~Rudy Fernandez
by twiggs on Jan 19, 2009 2:13 PM PST reply actions 1 recs
I would be very surprised if Bayless gets an invite to the Rookie/Sophomore game. I suspect Batum might though as he’s started a good portion of the year. Poor Bayless could be the only of our rookies not invited.
by danielfarrell on Jan 19, 2009 2:22 PM PST up reply actions
I'm mostly being a homer
I would be suprised if Bayless or Batum made it…
Rudy for ROY
Campaign 08-09
"Rudy is not everyday a shooter." ~Rudy Fernandez
BE interesting to see the list of rookies.
I think Batum will make it. Rudy should be a no brainer. Bayless, probably not. I’m sure that’ll eat at him for the sophmore games. Rudy should thrive in the rookie all star game. Just give him somebody who can pass at point!
Greg Oden, where posters happen.
No way Batum makes it
He is not even in the list of the top 20 Rookies in either ESPN or NBA.com’s rankings. While I would hope he does I am holding a zero % chance.
"I saw him in the face" Sergio's quote on the latest alley-oop to Rudy.
by blazermaniac32 on Jan 19, 2009 2:50 PM PST up reply actions
On the other hand
It’s all about money, and he would bring some ratings/interest because he’s French.
sounds like the Yellow Brick Road...
There is probably no more terrible instance of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man — with human flesh.
Paul Muad'Dib - Dune (Frank Herbert)
My Translation: My Dad is a dude just like me, and my sons are dudes like me also. I love that.
Season Tix: Section 315, with my sons
winning is easy when you've got a whole big country behind you
Rudy better not let us down. That’s all I can say. He better strt working on his dunks ASAP.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Yay for Spain!
I feel that the other players there definitely deserved it more. I mean… does rudy know he’ll have to wear a cape and dunk while eating cup cakes? I’m not sure that he’s up for that. Rudy does awesome dunks in game to actually score points. The dunk contest isn’t about real games it’s about doing silly stunts.
here’s hoping rudy wears his silly hat.
Greg Oden, where posters happen.
Like this?
Maybe it will help him get those “hops” that everyone is so concerned about.
Rudy for ROY
Campaign 08-09
"Rudy is not everyday a shooter." ~Rudy Fernandez
Birdman
is the most ugly, interesting person I’ve ever seen. The colors, the colors, of those tattoos.
There is probably no more terrible instance of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man — with human flesh.
Paul Muad'Dib - Dune (Frank Herbert)
My Translation: My Dad is a dude just like me, and my sons are dudes like me also. I love that.
Season Tix: Section 315, with my sons
Yes
Jordan won the dunk contest in 1987 and 1988.
by danielfarrell on Jan 19, 2009 3:25 PM PST up reply actions
free throw line dunks aren’t what they used to be now that Lebron does them in games :-0
by danielfarrell on Jan 19, 2009 5:34 PM PST up reply actions
While on subject of rookie-soph game,
Do you think Greg will get to start for the rooks? I mean Speights has been playing out of his mind in Philly, and although Greg has more starpower than any other rookie big and is playing on a winning team, I have a bad feeling that the voters will try to stick it to him and make him a reserve, or even worse not put him on the team in favor of Brook Lopez.
No fan voting for the Rookie Challenge
This is done by the NBA assistant coaches, with each team submitting one ballot (rookies and sophomores). You can’t vote for your own players.
One exception, though that usually shouldn’t change something: If a rookie or sophomore is voted into the All-Star game as a starter, he is also automatically eligible to participate in the Rookie Challenge. But I don’t see a situation where a player gets left off the Rookie Challenge when he is a legitimate All-Star.
The All-Rookie team selection at the end of the season is conducted by the 30 NBA head coaches (not allowed to vote for own players again). They are asked to select five players for the first team and five players for the second team, regardless of player position. For each first team vote a player gets two points, and one for each second team vote. Then the five guys with the most votes get on the first team, and the next five on the second. In case of a tie teams can get extended, that happened e.g with LaMarcus and oddly enough Jorge Gabajosa.
He's going against Nate Robinson
He should kick butt.
I'm a Blazers fan and If you ban me from your blog, I'll sue you!
Please don't feed the trolls.
God forgives, tominhawaii doesn't.
The other blazers need to help Rudy out with creative ideas...
like having Bayless wear a Rudy disguise and do the dunks for him!
Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Rudy alley-oops, but I have yet to see him do any stylish dunks in a game. In fact none of our players really add much personality to their dunks, besides the predictable Greg Oden double knee-punch to the face.
Nevertheless, I will be cheering for Rudy and hope he can pull out some creative hang-a-pinata-off-the-rim-and-bash-it-before-dunking-type silly dunks to have a chance in this contest.
And it would be epic if he got a life size Dwight Howard poster and reinacted the Olympic dunk on his head.
by Roycity on Jan 20, 2009 8:01 AM PST reply actions 1 recs
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