Ben McLemore in the Dunk Contest
- Thread starter HereWeBoogie
- Start date
Who is Ben McLemore? After watching him this year and seeing this contest, I don't know who he is. My impression is he is kind of lackadaisical. It is one thing to take coaching and your desire to be the best and mold yourself into a force to be reckoned with in the NBA. It's another to let Shaq turn you into Shaq-Lemore. Although it was somewhat entertaining, Shaq was not in the dunk contest. I think if Ben is going to have a career, he needs to take ownership of who he is and what he wants to become.
The format absolutely killed the contest. I really would have loved to see this group of dunkers (minus Lillard and Harrison Barnes) compete in the traditional format where they would have all gotten to do more than one real dunk, i think Ben would have done well, he was getting up higher than anyone else in that contest, his 2 ally oops in the warm up freestyle round were insane
The format ruined it, but Ben had some nice dunks. His two solo dunks in the freeststyle round were nice and the leg extension and finish on his last dunk was very solid(the Shaq involvement took all the focus away from Ben and his nice dunk, Shaq has always been a glory hound). He probably had one or two more dunks prepped, but the format was beyond stupid. Overall a good performance from Ben, and much better than I thought he would do. I figured he would have been nervous and botched half his dunks.
Ben is 20 years old. Even if you THINK you know who you are at 20 years old, you really don't. I often wish I listened more often to people who knew more than me when I was that age. We all know that Ben is not going to be the alpha male on the team. So if you're wanting him to grow into that, you will continue to be disappointed. That is not what is going to make or break him though. It will be his skill development.
I didn't like the Shaq-Lemore thing, but then, I don't like Shaq's antics to begin with. But the fact is, Shaq knows how to get attention. The crowd stood up in anticipation when it was going on. Ben just needed to hit the dunk on the first try to make it all tie together. That, the format and the fact that John Wall followed right after Ben is what went wrong. Had nothing to do with his personality.
I didn't like the Shaq-Lemore thing, but then, I don't like Shaq's antics to begin with. But the fact is, Shaq knows how to get attention. The crowd stood up in anticipation when it was going on. Ben just needed to hit the dunk on the first try to make it all tie together. That, the format and the fact that John Wall followed right after Ben is what went wrong. Had nothing to do with his personality.
I didn't mind the Shaq-Lemore gimmick thing. it got the crowd on their feet, and having Shaq linked to our franchise and our young star is not a bad thing at all considering he is one the BIGGEST names in sports. and it would have been a great first dunk in the traditional Dunk Contest format where Ben would have been guaranteed at least one more dunk. But Ben, and the fans, got robbed by this stupid format where we never got to see what any of these guys had planned outside of their first dunks (which we all know were not the best dunks they had in their arsenal that night)