Hamidou Diallo blew the roof off of the Spectrum Center with his second dunk of the 2019 NBA Dunk Contest on Saturday with an epic dunk over one of the giants of the game.
Diallo initially brought out a rack of balls to clear, decided that wasn’t challenging enough, and brought in 7’1″ Shaquille O’Neal to aid in his dunk attempt. He then revealed a Superman shirt underneath his jersey before jumping over Shaq and ending in an elbow dunk for an easy 50.
Diallo just elbow dunked over Shaq 😱 https://t.co/1HKc4XCEgq
— Dime (@DimeUPROXX) February 17, 2019
Diallo may have needed a little leverage to clear the Hall of Fame center, but it was an impressive leap nonetheless for the rookie Thunder guard.
As J.A. Adande pointed out, it was a double homage to Vince Carter with the set-up and the finish. Last year’s champ, Donovan Mitchell, also did an ode to arguably the greatest dunker of all time with his final dunk in a throwback Raptors Carter jersey.
Diallo with the double-homage to Vince Carter — dunking over a center (Shaq), hanging his elbow in the rim.
— J.A. Adande (@jadande) February 17, 2019
Diallo advanced to the final to face Dennis Smith, Jr., who also scored a 50 on his second dunk with an assist from J. Cole. The real question is why Diallo didn’t save one of the best dunks of recent memory for later when he only needed a score of 36 to advance to the second round.
