We finally got it, NBA fans. We finally received our obligatory Blake Griffin dunk of the year where he embarrasses and steals the dignity of an unfortunate defender who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and attempted to foolishly defend the athletic anomaly that is the 6-10 Griffin.
However, the question remains: Should they be considered dunks? We certainly thought so when Dwight Howard won a Slam Dunk Contest via a dunk where his hand never actual made contact with the rim, as well as Griffin’s original poster to end all posters on Timofey Mozgov. We’ll leave that up to your interpretation, but for the sake of this list, it’s considered a dunk.
Joining Griffin on this week’s edition of the top ten dunks are the usual suspects, including a pair of slams from LeBron James, Taj Gibson‘s weekly poster, and a turn-back-the-clock moment from Vince Carter and Tim Duncan.
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10. Reggie Jackson dunks on Kenneth Faried
The 6-3 Reggie Jackson is at it again, making another stop on the week’s top ten dunks list with an out-of-nowhere dunk over Denver’s Kenneth Faried.
It was a rough night for Faried, despite his team eventually getting the win, because he had already been victimized by Kevin Durant on a crossover earlier in the game. A few minutes after that, he had to deal with Jackson, who only needed to bounce off one step down the lane to elevate and throw down over the outstretched arms of the Manimal.



9. Vintage dunk of the week: Vince Carter dunks over Tim Duncan
It’s not as memorable as the previous time Vince Carter dunked over Tim Duncan, but it is still worthy of respect for the soon-to-be-37-year-old Carter to need only so much room and so many steps to still dunk over one of the league’s better defenders.
Had this play occurred in 2004, it probably would have been the best play of the week. But because age is a cruel part of life, the dunk by Carter only receives so much recognition. Still, to see Carter dunk over Duncan and then do the signature celebration afterwards is something that I wish would never leave the NBA.
8. Anthony Davis goes full extension for the putback dunk
Anthony Davis is one of those players you can rightfully label as a freak athlete, with no better evidence than this stunning putback slam against the Miami Heat.
Davis comes from out of nowhere to contort his body and perfectly time the offensive rebound in between several Heat players who were only there to watch. It came during a first half against Miami where he ended the first 24 minutes of the game with a double-double. Like I said, freak athlete and all that.
7. Taj Gibson dunks on Bismack Biyombo
A staple of seemingly every weekly edition of the top ten dunks list, Taj Gibson throws his hat into the ring once again, this time with a demoralizing poster slam over Charlotte’s Bismack Biyombo.
There’s no point in even trying to defend Gibson’s dunks at this point. He’s too powerful and gets to the rim too quickly to even make an honest attempt at sending back one of the league’s most ferocious dunkers.
6. Blake Griffin dunks around Chris Kaman
Even more surprising than the dunk itself was Jamal Crawford turning down a wide-open three to facilitate.
It looks like Chris Kaman finally gets it, though. After years of having defenders actually attempt to avoid embarassment and create a highlight of their own with a block, Kaman finally realizes that he won’t win against a Blake Griffin dunk, allowing the athletic man-child to throw down the one-handed tomahawk. However, as we’ll see later on in this week’s edition of the top ten, not all of Blake’s defenders understand that it’s better to just let Griffin get his.
5. LeBron James goes baseline against Andrea Bargnani
Yeah, this is exactly what I would have expected had you told me Andrea Bargnani was defending LeBron James. Using nothing more than the athleticism he was given and has mastered over his playing career, LeBron goes right around Bargnani baseline to throw down the reverse dunk in his team’s loss to New York.
4. DeAndre Jordan dunks on Glen Davis
Good job, good effort by Glen Davis, but this is one of those plays you just let happen and move on from.
At which point are defenders going to realize that attempting to block the dunks of Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan are not going to end well? They’re too big, too athletic, too strong, and jump too high for any mortal human being, even those of insane height, to successfully send back a dunk.
Consider Davis as a martyr for the cause. In time, it will happen and we will rejoice.
3. Blake Griffin throws down the windmill alley-oop
I’m not sure if Matt Barnes was purposely trying to throw the alley-oop pass low to Blake Griffin for the rare windmill alley-oop, but it was the right play, regardless of where he was actually trying to put the ball. Sometimes the best alley-oops come off of the worst passes.
On the dunk itself, it’s Blake being Blake. He’s capable of doing things that no player at his size should be able to do and he does them with disturbing ease. Seriously, look at his expression. He treats each of his dunks as if he does them on a daily basis, which he sort of does actually.
It’s been four years since we first started watching Blake Griffin, and we have yet to see him display any kind of emotion or expressions following his dunks. In fact, it’s his teammates and the crowd’s reaction who do that for him.
2. LeBron James dunks on gravity
LeBron James has defied the laws of physics before, but he’s never been more open about it before until now.
In this alley-oop dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans, LeBron goes backdoor on a cut to receive a perfectly placed, no-look pass from Dwyane Wade. Rather than just dunking it through, however, James pauses in mid-air to evaluate his surroundings and breathe in the scenery. After appreciating the moment, James finally falls back down to earth, but not before finishing off the devastating alley-oop.
1. Blake Griffin baptizes Kris Humphries
I’ll leave it up to you to interpret. Because if Blake Griffin wasn’t already stretching the idea of a dunk with his shots that are just thrown into the basket really hard, he’s topped himself with whatever you wish to call this over Kris Humphries.
This dunk is even more debatable than the original poster over Timofey Mozgov. Griffin throws the ball through the rim even farther away than the dunk he had over Mozgov, worthy of a comparison to Dwight Howard’s superman dunk back in the Slam Dunk Contest.
Either way, can we just agree that Humphries isn’t walking away from this play with his dignity in tact? Also, check out DeAndre Jordan’s reaction of “I can’t believe it happened again.”
What do you think?
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