The way Phil Jackson was talking about Roy, it sounds like he’ll have a load of playing time and a lot of opportunities, as he is one of the only viable options at small forward.

I have an inkling he could be in MVP consideration, although LeBron or Kobe will get it, depending on which side wins.

Rudy got hosed. His dunks were not gimmicks. They were technically sound, beautiful efforts. But can you imagine half court Sergio-Rudy oops? That would have been much better.

Brandon last year showed he can play at that level in the game, so this year He just needs to go all out and take it too them. Go Show them what we know you are capable of Brandon!

Dave, did you find Kenny Smith to be a little offensive towards Spain? He called them amateur and laughed at the tribute of Fernando Martin… until he realized Martin died.

His berating Rudy was classless.

It was rigged and it didn’t matter how good Rudy or even JR Smith did because the NBA told the judges that Howard and Robinson had to be in the final round. I’m just completely disgusted by the NBA because the best dunker in the first round was by far Rudy. It doesn’t matter that it took him a couple times to get that second dunk because he is only doing what is in the rules for the competition. The dunk contest was a complete joke this year and if it wasn’t for Roy playing in the All-Star game tomorrow I wouldn’t watch.

I used to LOVE the all star weekend. Love it. But I realize, looking back, that this was a combination of the event being in its hey-day, and the fact that several Blazers were involved. When the Blazer appearances dried up, so did my interest.

And now, we’ve got some Blazers back in, and my interest is picqued again. Not a coincidence.

But here’s the thing, and probably the real reason why so many people are wailing and gnashing their teeth at the outcome of the rookie game. This is the first true national stage outside of the finals. Just as heroes are made and destroyed in the finals, so are they in the all star events. Dwight Howard was known before his dunks last year, but that performance put him well and truly on the map. Now, this isn’t always the case. You have to back it up with spectacular play in the following season, or else you become a footnote. But there are still people who believe that Jordan Farmar and Daniel Gibson are better players than Roy, simply because their stats were better than his in the rookie game. Shallow? Yes, but no less a reality of fame.

And that is where the respect is won, that we all crave so much with our small town, rural state insecurities. We fear that outsiders will see the 8 missed dunks by Rudy as a reason to vindicate their mockeries of our fair city and state. I don’t think we so much fear Oden being a bust as other people seeing the allstar game and making fun of us because of it. It’s like the old saying about judging people based on a snapshot of who they are (as they flip you off on the highway, or yell at someone in line). The allstar events are that snapshot for the nation. And we cringe when we see broccoli on the collective teeth of Oregon.

From the first paragraph I thought you were going to take this in an interesting and controversial direction. Instead you just do the typical and safe, everyone loves to hate the L*kers schtick. I would like it if you would at least acknowledge the pain and disgust of what happened to Rudy, and by extension the fan base here last night. From Kenny Smith’s comments to the judges scores to TNT ruining one of the dunks. No one thought Rudy had a chance. And as turns out, they were right. But not because he didn’t belong. His creativity and execution were by far the tops of the first round at the very least.

It’s an opportunity for us to prove to the rest of the world that “our guys” are as awesome as we know they are. When events conspire to undermine that opportunity, it’s frustrating.

There are still people who think AI is the greatest basketball player of all time this side of his Airness, based solely on his single handed dismantling of the West back in the days when the West always won. I really don’t think that many people internationally were watching Philly and Denver games to support his massive jersey sales.

that I didn’t get to see Rudy’s other dunks. I’m positive that he had some more creative stuff he was saving for the second round that would’ve revolutionized the contest. Hence the post by Ben about the “Rainbow” soccer move (using your feet to kick the ball up and over).

that NO ONE gave Rudy a chance before the competition started and the judges and the commentators picked up on that. They were obviously biased against Rudy because he’s the first European to ever compete in the Dunk contest. Did you guys remember Kenny laughing at Rudy when ever he was about to dunk? Don’t get me started on the stupid remarks about the Spainish people! Kenny had to be reminded about Rudy’s dunk on Howard at Beijing. How bias is that? I bet he doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist for his ignorant remarks!

Mr. Dave. Laughed into my bowl of cereal this morning over it!

Start him at shooting guard, then over to the point, then go smallball with Roy’ at SF.

He will ask Roy to carry the team the entire 4th quarter, right at Garnett and Howard waiting in the middle.

Phil to Roy: “Slash Brandon Slash, again and again”.

Meanwhile Kobe will be sitting’ back at the 3 point line, and gets the MVP trophy as our man ices his bruises, quietly walking off into the Arizona sunset.

That was my L*ker nightmare last night. Glad it was just a dream….

In answer to your question, “what does it mean?” Rudy got hosed because he had no support from his teammate BRoy. Brandon was too busy to show up and support Rudy.
IMO Brandon is jealous of Rudy’s attention in Portland. Pau and the L@kers were not the problem in this debacle as “teammate” BRoy could have practiced this event with Rudy. Such a scenario would have perhaps produced a second round attempt. We will never know if there could have been a Blazer upset in this contest. Boo BRoy. I guess the “stay humble” sign fell out of your locker. Rudy, you are in a class by yourself. You don’t need a sign in your locker to “stay humble.” Great dunk!

Wickopedia has already updated Fernando Martin to include Rudy’s dunk tribute.

Amazing how Wicko can put more thought and effort into it then the combined TNT forces.

All-Star game and all the surrounding hoopla (blah – rim shot) means nothing. I’d just as soon they name a team and send them a certificate or something. These things are dangerous – someone could poke an eye out. Isn’t the season long enough, exhausting enough without putting on some dog and pony show? I hope Brandon and Rudy slept through everything they didn’t have to be involved in and that GO got out of there as soon as he could after that rookie/sophomore – uh – game.

Mortimer, you should read your 1: 59 am post. “Why the hell wasn’t Roy throwing the pass?”

Of course, the contest was a big gimmick. All about entertainment, folks. Hype and more hype for the superstars.

The many attempts:
I think a slight deduction for Rudy’s attempt was warranted since it does take away from the “artistic merit” of the dunk to not stick it after a few repetitions. Rudy choose Pau. His decision. Pau is a decent passer, but certainly no point guard, duh. And Rudy/Pau chose to make it more complex than necessary with the “behind the back” pass that didn’t really add anything to the greatness of Rudy’s dunk, and thus they couldn’t pull it off. That’s also not the fault of the judges. Once Rudy and Pau agreed to leave that gimmick away, the nailed it and it was beautiful, at least a 45.

It has been said before in this thread that Nate Robinson needed a ton of attempts for his dunk over Spud Webb a few years ago, and still got the whole 50 to win the thing. Either the rules have been changed in the meantime, or that was stupid judging.

The judging:
It was definitely stupid biased judging to give Howard 50 points on his first dunk. (His second one deserved that score much more.) He also needed multiple (3? 4?) attempts. And it just wasn’t that good to warrant a PERFECT score. Pro judges in other sports grading artistic execution like snowboard/skateboard halfpipe, figure skating, gymnastics would never ever do that to leave themselves some room. Even the TNT guys didn’t think it was worth 50, “maybe a 9”, before they went to commercial break. And they were holding Howard’s jock all night. That put the whole contest on the wrong track, since afterwards every nicely executed complex dunk would have been a 50 in comparison.

Timing and props:
We already discussed that Pau’s pass was too fancy. Another problem was that on Rudy’s first attempt after the “costume change” he should have paused a while so TNT can inform the viewers who he is honoring and the audience can take it in. (And Kenny can make his stupid LaRue Martin and Ricky Martin jokes.) If Dwight can take several minutes to bring in his props, Rudy can be given 30 seconds while TNT explains what the meaning of this jersey is meant to represent (also wouldn’t he have gotten even more admiration from the girls in the audience if he had taken his jersey off, then put the Martin #10 on? ;-)). The play by play announcer was briefed on what Rudy was doing and they did have an on-air graphic prepared. But since it went by so fast the camera cut to the graphic and then to his attempt at the very last second, even missing his really nice behind the back toss at first and only showing that on the replay. Rudy was nervous, and that he rushed that one showed it and unfortunately took a bit away from an awesome tribute that really was a surprise. And he made that pretty difficult dunk look easy on the first attempt, which probably also contributed to a too low score.

Order of the dunks:
That one is highly important yet difficult to determine. Gerald Green did the cupcake dunk in the first round a year or two ago. That secured him the finals, but he had nothing to put on top there. Maybe Rudy thought the same. According to Casey he had that “rainbow kick for reverse dunk” planned for the finals, according to Ben maybe with letting the ball bounce once, maybe he could have put it in directly as an oop. Another order with the Gasol toss as the last dunk might have served him better against the "overwhelming" competition of the better known guys to at least reach the finals and win the crowd over. Which he partly did anyway, since the score for his second dunk was the only one receiving many audible boos. I assume not because they didn’t like his dunk.

Announcers/studio crew:
Pretty horrible all weekend, disinterested and or not informed well. Bring Barkley back, at least he is kinda funny. Or better yet give the whole thing to another station that agrees to focus more on the actual action on the court. In the rookies game, I wanted to learn about the rookies and sophomores. Instead, I learned more about how LeBron felt when he entered the league and D-Wade’s band aid. Highlight of the first night was their interview with Pau Gasol, when he talked about his brother in the contest and his impression of some of the young guys. The H.O.R.S.E contest was pretty lame with the least creative guy winning, and the commentators didn’t add much to it. I doubt it will be back in exactly this form. In the three point contest, they focused on praising exactly the wrong guys all the time who didn’t win jack. The dunk contest, we can all agree that they focused way too much on “Superman” Howard vs. “KryptoNate”. Was it all stage? I don’t know, but at least they didn’t do much to bring well deserved attention to the other two participants. The highlight of their weekend was probably to announcer LeBron would enter the 2010 dunk contest.

Overall:
I was pretty impressed by his dunks immediately, and thinking about the whole contest and what the other guys did I suppose he should have made the finals. He did very well for himself and the Blazers and didn’t embarrass himself like many expected (also considering his legs must have been tired after a long week). Off-air the TNT guys argued that Westbrook or Alexander should have been there and on-air they confused the fan voting with Rudy being in instead of Rudy Gay (out with injury). Afterwards even despite all their jokes they must have come away with a better impression of him. Or so I hope.

I think Rudy will be back in some challenge next year. He would be awesome for H.O.R.S.E. and at least good for everything. Who else in the league could you expect to do well in every All-Star contest? Not much more than 10 players I would say. Rudy, you are Mr. Versatile. Good job.

Anyone think Sergio could have made the pass to Rudy on the 1st try? Talk about supporting your friends, thanks for being such a team guy Sergio…

nothings!!! It’s WWF lite. It’s so stupid, it’s fun!!!

I think they should do a US vs. the world battle royale, like the Nike hoops summit.

The interest it generates is a good indication of how antsy the world is for meaningful games. I guess it’s the cermonial beginning of the “real” season.

White men cant jump. So people wrote him off. Even Shaq gave Rudy more of a nod then the judges. To me that says more then Ludacris holding up an 8… over and over and over.

I think for one of Rudy’s dunks he should have just had everyone look up at the jumbo-tron where his dunk over Dwight Howard from the Olympics would then play.

He would have still lost… but at least people would remember he can throw down with the best of them.

Pau Gasol predicted Rudy’s dunk contest failure. Basically, Stan thinks the green-eyed monster played a role in Gasol’s passes.

was gonna blow and I was right! The Shooting Stars comp. is just plain stupid as its always the same teams and players. San Antonio, LA, Detroit and Phoenix. Same four EVERY year. The Skills comp. is alright but the players don’t seem to take it seriously at all so where’s the fun in that? The 3pt shooting was a joke this year. To be fair, usually its pretty interesting, but this year the players couldn’t hit very many. Where’s Ray Allen, Dirk? The Slam dunk contest, well we all have had our say on that now haven’t we? I don’t think that I have enjoyed watching it since that year that Vince Carter won it. Now its all about props! It has nothing to do with the art of dunking the way guys like Dr.J, Jordan, Webb, Wilkens and Carter made famous. Now you can dress up in your favourite Halloween costume and do a simple dunk over a 7-footer( who’s facing the basket,i.e not trying to block the dunk) and get a 50! Didn’t our Rudy do something like that sometime ago? Was it not the same 7-footer? But didn’t he TRY to block it? It wasn’t during a game, was it?
The Dunk contest should only be about dunking and not playing dress up! I say no props !

Pau is a freaking L*ker, end of story. Where was the marketing department? My world turned upside down during that event. And Rudy got robbed.

Rudy: My kid wears your jersey almost ever day, but we watched a L*ker try and pass you the ball. Oh man, it was not right at all, and the purple nightmares are now ensuing. Thanks.