Photo by Crossett Library Bennington College on Flickr

I cant stop watching this Gerald Green dunk from five days ago in a game against the Houston Rockets:

Theres simply no question that its a great dunk, just as impressive as Blake Griffins shoryukenof Kendrick Perkins, but different. In fact, these two dunks expose the dual nature of the dunk itself: on one hand, it can be a tremendously physical, assaultive act and on the other hand it can be fluid and quasi-balletic. In much the way that some running backs crush linemen to get yardage while others juke and spin their way up the field, so some dunkers smash and others soar.

But what keeps me coming back to this particular dunk again and again is not precisely the dunk itself, but rather the totality of the clip. The above clip illustrates why a great in-game dunk clip is the gift that keeps on giving. Let me take you back, as I often seem to do, to Greek tragedy. A huge part of the way the plays of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus work is through the tension between the audiences understanding of the play and the characters inability to understand the play from within it. For example, we as the audience know that Oedipus has killed his father and married his mother but he does not, and so our enjoyment of the play comes from Oedipus understanding gradually reaching the same level as our own.

In the flow of the game, Greens dunk is barely comprehensible. It happens so fast that were left only with the understanding that something kind of incredible just happened. As we watch the replay, or watch the clip again and again on YouTube, we can now see it and know whats going to happen and so we get to enjoy the blossoming understanding of those who are just reacting to the moment. As you watch it again, take a look at the setup as the break evolves with MarShon Brooks leading it:

This is a pretty typical two-on-one fast break. Brooks sees Green coming up the other side of the floor and makes the smart play by throwing it up for him. At this point, were already expecting a dunktheres a clear path to the basket and Green is a terrific leaperbut most of the time this results in a straightforward two-handed dunk or, more likely, a basic one-handed jam.

But instead, Green jumps higher than really seems possible and delivers the windmill, turning this picayune fast break into something incredible. Take a moment to appreciate these two stills, which are separated by only a frame:

See original here:
Anatomy Of A Dunk Clip: Gerald Green