If you've followed Seattle's quest for a new basketball team, you've probably heard of SonicsGate, an organization attempting to explain how the franchise moved to Oklahoma City and how Seattle can possibly steal another city's team to make it their own. They produced a documentary of the same name, as well, full of interviews with Sonics legends and other key figures in Seattle hoops.
The filmmakers have now released some outtakes from their interviews, and at least one has relevance to a common player comparison in today's NBA. As you can watch above, the SonicsGate crew talked to Shawn Kemp about the Los Angeles Clippers' Lob City and the dunking exploits of Blake Griffin. Somewhat surprisingly, Kemp is not entirely gracious, noting that he likes Griffin but that his alley-oops are "slap-ins" and that "jumping over the front end [of a car] doesn't count." Oh, and there's also a delightful use of the third-person: "He's not as strong as Shawn Kemp is."
Kemp might be the most ferocious dunker of all time, so it's not the craziest thing in the world that he'd look at any other aerial artist as a cut below himself. On the other hand, what he says here is fairly ridiculous. Griffin finishes a good number of alley-oops with less-than-imposing strength, but anyone who takes a hard foul from Kendrick Perkins and still dunks on him with power is not exactly a sissy boy. Griffin might not be Kemp, but he's certainly the best we have today. Let's celebrate him instead of comparing him to all who came before.
(via SLAM)
No comments:
Post a Comment