2/12/15: The Greatest One Trick Ponies in NBA All-Star Saturday Night History
All-Star Saturday Night has long been one of my favorite dates on the sporting calendar. Sure, it often fails to live up to the hype, but it’s a tradition — a collective memory of men taking the leap toward sports immortality, and of one-trick ponies. On All-Star Saturday Night, these unsung heroes brought their singular talents before a nation of eyeballs, some never to be heard from again.
Slam Dunk Contest
We’ve already mentioned Terence Stansbury, he of the 360 Statue of Liberty dunk, which he showcased at three consecutive Slam Dunk Contests (1985–87). Stansbury couldn’t topple the likes of Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins and Spud Webb, finishing third in each appearance, before fading into obscurity.
Like Stansbury, Darvin Ham never won the title. In fact Ham only participated in one Dunk Contest (the ’97 affair rigged for Kobe Bryant) and didn’t make it out of the first round! With the crowd and judges apparently in Kobe’s pocket, the quick-working Ham found himself an also-ran despite a thunderous windmill, a double-pump reverse where he brought the ball down to his feet and finished with one hand, and an extremely difficult flush where he tapped glass with his off hand, whirled and slammed it through.
Remember 1989 champion Kenny “Sky” Walker? The former Kentucky All-American and Knicks bench cog had a cool, 80’s appropriate nickname and an amazing hi-top fade. Walker, who had lost his father just three days before the contest, won over the Houston crowd with his spins and windmills, defeating local legend Clyde Drexler in the finals. Less than two years later, Walker was playing overseas. He made it back to the NBA but never again achieved such heights.
Harold “Baby Jordan” Miner, a two-time Dunk Contest winner cursed by his nickname and injured knees, might be a more familiar name. But how about Fred Jones? The 6’4″ swingman seemed like a rising star when he won the title in 2004, but got lost in Indiana following the Malice at the Palace; he had stops in Toronto, New York and Los Angeles before he, too, went to Europe.
Three-Point Shootout
Remember Jim Les? A Sacramento King back when the jerseys had the names underneath the numbers? The 5’11” point guard with career averages of 3.8 points and 2.9 assists made a run at the Three-Point crown in 1992, coming out of nowhere to post the highest single round score of the night and taking defending champ Craig Hodges to overtime, where it came down to the final shot, a money ball Les clanged off the rim.
Speaking of Hodges, the former Bulls, Bucks, Suns and Clips marksman holds the all-time record with eight appearances in the contest, at one point winning three straight (’90, ’91, and ’92). In 1993, the three-time defending champ didn’t even have a team; the free agent showed up rocking a generic “NBA” jersey. Hodges eventually filed suit against the league, saying he was blackballed for his political views following the Bulls’ 1992 Finals win.
If you thought that was derivative, how about a Three-Point Contest featuring a guy who never even played in the NBA? It happened in 1989, when Rimas Kurtinaitis participated as a representative of the Soviet Union. The Lithuanian came out ice cold and finished with only nine points.
Trent Tucker was one of the first, and in my mind, the definition of a three-point specialist. The 6’5” guard shot 41% from downtown during an 11-year career spent mostly with the Knicks. He snagged an NBA Championship late in his career coming off the bench for the Bulls. In 1986, Tucker was a legitimate threat to snag the inaugural Three-Point Shootout crown, but bowed out in the semifinals as Larry Bird rolled to the first of three titles.
And it seems like you could always expect to see Dale Ellis in the Three-Point Shootout. Ellis was no one-trick pony; in fact, he finished with over 19,000 points for his career and was an All-Star in 1989, the year an injured Bird stayed home from the competition. Ellis took advantage on his fourth try, winning before handing the reins to Hodges for a few years. But Ellis came back in ’94. And in ’97, the veteran, then mostly a specialist, returned again for a final two-year run, rounding out his Three-Point Shootout appearances at seven.
Recent years have seen titles go to the likes of Jason Kapono, Daequan Cook, and James Jones. So while the Splash Brothers, James Harden and Kyrie Irving get the attention in this year’s model, just remember, there’s always a Jim Les waiting in the weeds, alone in a gym somewhere hoisting thousands of jump shots, training for his chance at glory on All-Star Saturday Night.
This post was originally published to TheDropStep.com on February 12, 2015.
