Macedonia’s Bloodiest Slam Dunks

Shaquille O’Neal romanticized the image of a shattered backboard. It’s the ultimate assertion of dominance, you’d say to yourself as you dunked on an 8-foot rim or ripped a Nerf hoop off the inside of your door. Well, Shaq sort of exists outside the realm of human possibility, because when Oregon State sophomore guard Roberto Nelson ripped down the backboard he carried it to the floor on his face.

The mayhem starts at about the 2:10 mark in the video — playing in an organized game in Skopje, Macedonia, for a service-based traveling college basketball team called “Beavers Without Borders”, Nelson goes up for a dunk and shatters the sh** out of the goal, shredding his face and getting 20 stitches, all while trying to figure out how to say “I’m sorry” in Macedonian. Firstly, telling people who got those scars shattering a backboard in Macedonia is pretty awesome. Secondly, I think the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe are Beavers Without Borders.

On a serious note, Beavers Without Borders are in Skopje is to do construction work for local families in need, and that’s a cool cause. And it gives you a great, lay-up joke about Roberto Nelson’s deconstruction skills.

[h/t Off the Bench]

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