There’s sadness to report from the Wizards’ locker room, unfortunately on Valentine’s Day, and it involves Nick Young’s  forlorn relationship with the NBA’s annual dunk contest. Upon being passed up by the League for this year’s event in his  hometown of Los Angeles in favor of teammate JaVale McGee, Young admitted that he was a little jealous. However, not two weeks ago, Young was alluding that he and McGee had something special planned for the contest being held on NBA All-Star Saturday night on February 19. Now, things have seemingly changed … sadness, and perhaps some hate has entered the realm of Young. Poor guy. Let’s hear it from him:

Believable? Well, Young did learn from the master, Gilbert Arenas … so there’s that.

LINKS.

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Now, this dunk wasn’t on, on Australia’s Andrew Bogut, but we’ll include him for diplomatic reasons. Turkey’s Ersan Ilyasova getting smacked around by Los Angeles’ Nick Young is really the big winner here.

One of the first things that comes to mind when looking at a picture like this is that there’s no way he’s making it to the rim.

He did.

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This is one of the few photos taken of this epic dunk by Washington Wizards forward Al Thornton on Atlanta Hawks center Zaza Pachulia.

Enjoy, and more to come.

Now, in live action.

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Marcin Gortat’s head is pretty stoic for the position that it’s in.

This was one of those weird times when some huge official arena flash went off while I was taking a picture … came out kind of cool though.

Before getting weirdly entertained by a white man from Iowa wearing Oakleys, in a January 20 chat on ESPN.com, John Hollinger wrote about Nick Young, when not even specifically asked about Young: Read more »

During last Friday’s Washington Wizards win over New Jersey Nets, Comcast’s Chris Miller had an in-game interview with JaVale McGee’s mother, Pamela. The questions centered around her thoughts on JaVale being selected for the All-Star dunk contest. She talked about how proud she is to see his growth as a basketball player, his love of dunking, and shared a story where JaVale touched the top of backboard in street shoes at his pre-draft workout for Cleveland. Hilarity ensues at the 1:08 mark of video when Pam interrupts her backboard story to yell this to a passerby:

“Hey dude, we’re on TV … We’re on TV dude!”

There’s no video of the funny exchange, only audio while highlights of JaVale are shown, so the identity of the interview interrupter is unknown, but Gheorghe Muresan is sitting in the background. Miller later tries to prod Pam, a former WNBA player and Olympic champion, into revealing if she would be involved in any of McGee’s dunks. She coyly indicated that she would be on-hand for the festivities, but stopped short from officially announcing her participation.

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The historical invitation of JaVale McGee, a Washington Wizard, to the 2011 NBA slam dunk contest got the franchise all excited (which in turn got Dan Steinberg all bloggy). You see, this is the first player in Wizards/Bullets franchise history selected to participate in the dunk contest, so there’s little shame in taking the extra, perhaps unnecessary, step of hyping it up, along with showing the player that he has the team’s support. Plus, this franchise, fresh off an 0-17 start on the road this season, needs any good news it can get … and yes, this is good news. But is McGee really the franchise’s first?

On Wednesday night’s television broadcast of the Wizards-Sixers game, the trivia question of the night for the hometown D.C. crew, Comcast’s Phil Chenier and Steve Buckhantz, was to name the former dunk champions who have played for the Washington franchise (but for other teams when they won) — Michael Jordan and Kenny Walker was the answer. Other dunk contest participants who have played for the franchise (but again, who played for other teams during their participation) include: Rex Chapman, Robert Pack, Jerry Stackhouse, Larry Hughes, DeShawn Stevenson, and of course, Darvin Ham.

Peruse this all-time list from NBA.com, nary a participant from the franchise for the “official” NBA dunk contest that started in 1984. But there was something about Chenier’s contemplative words as he can Buckhantz bantered about their trivia question before the answer was revealed.

“I know Elvin Hayes participated …,” Chenier trailed off.

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JaVale McGee had a pretty nice dunk on Josh Smith in Atlanta on Saturday. He also had a pretty nasty dunk on Spencer Hawes last night at home. Both dunks are very close in awesomeness. I have my ever-so-slight favorite, but you be the judge. Watch both and then vote in the poll below.

JaVale McGee ON Josh Smith – Oct. 30, 2010

JaVale McGee ON Spencer Hawes – Nov. 2, 2010

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A D.C. pic and links …

[Card game, no guns - Meridian Hill Park, Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

[UPDATE] Here’s more video of Wall and others from the Elite 24 runs. Looks like Johnny gets crossed up at the 0:59 mark. [via Ball is Life; h/t SLAM]

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Man, the NBA rookies are having fun. But they deserve it. It’s basketball, basketball, basketball all day for them. And then all those obligations, which, pertaining to John Wall (the most extreme case this year), have been aptly depicted by the Washington Post’s Michael Lee. Hard-work stuff, truly. So, they get paid millions and scrutinized by those who can’t do what they do. Pfftt … “reporters.”

Anyway … part of all this is why watching these guys have fun is so much, well, fun. So let’s take a look at some fun the rooks had while on their photo shoot Tuesday in New York.

First, we have John Wall messing around with his bro DeMarcus Cousins, playing some one-on-one:

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[The yell after the dunk.]

I’m pretty sure you’ve seen it by now, JaVale McGee’s monster dunk over New Orleans’ Kyle Hines in the fourth quarter of Friday’s game. It was pretty damn insane … and definitely would have been nice to see. I was right there, mere feet away taking pictures from the baseline. And right there in my way was the referee. Thankfully in this day and age there is a YouTube, so let’s take another watch.

[video courtesy of @jose3030]

After the game McGee spoke about his dunk, saying, “I surprised myself to tell you the truth. I thought I was going to dunk it, but I ain’t think … I felt like the rim was at my waist.”

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