The Dunk

NBA finals start today, so I reckon I'll post something I've had laying around for a while. It's about the dunk John Starks did over Jordan and Horace Grant in the '93 playoffs. The Knicks lost the series, but everyone lost to the Bulls, the Blazers included, it's all about style points. Anyway. The following text used to be on the web, but it's gone, now. So I'm going to repost it.

God looks a bit like a dunk
By DAN SEYMOUR

The gods decided to communicate with mankind on May 25, 1993, and yet the multitudes still refuse to acknowledge their message.

With Vince Carter's ludicrous dunk in the Sydney Olympics last summer, a rather bitter sentiment has resurfaced among various Knick-hating circles. I am referring, of course, to the sentiment that John Starks' infamous, incredible slam dunk at Madison Square Garden in the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals against the Bulls was, and I quote, "overrated." This was the sentiment formerly expressed by front-running, heretical Bulls fans who, by the way, though their sentiment has resurfaced, will not themselves resurface, at least until such time as the Bulls win another championship. In other words, not for a long, long time. So while these Bulls fans themselves remain harder to find than a Nets fan in Arkansas, their widespread conception that John Starks' dunk is "overrated" continues to linger.

However, in the face of unfathomable athletic and acrobatic dunks by Vince Carter among others, I still maintain that Starks' legendary dunk, known simply as "The Dunk" to New Yorkers, was the greatest dunk of all time. I say this not to imply that it was the dunk that displayed the most athletic prowess; nor do I wish to imply that it was the dunk that was the most aesthetically pleasing to watch, since it had a sort of gritty ugliness to it that only a Knicks fan could love. There have in the past been dunks that were more athletic, and more aesthetically pleasing to watch. However, "The Dunk" is so named and fondly remembered not just for its athleticism or its aesthetic value, but because of what that dunk meant to the Knicks and the city of New York at the time. It was the dunk's significance, what it symbolized and what it meant to the players and the fans. It was the dunk's spiritual relevance that transcended the artificial standards by which dunks are normally judged, and made it not only the greatest dunk of all time, but more importanly by far the most profoundly meaningful. For that moment, the line separating player from fan was melted as all of New York became a broiling skillet of fanaticism with one single, unified goal, one heart and one soul.

In retrospect, to fans, Michael Jordan was the best basketball player of all time, an icon, a demigod, a face for posters and Nike and Gatorade ads and a household name used to refer to when discussing greatness. But to Starks and the Knicks, he was an actual, real-life opponent. A superior opponent, we can indeed safely say in retrospect, but an opponent nonetheless. And at that, an opponent the Knicks knew they could beat, despite the skepticism of the rest of the known civilized world, and probably also despite the skepticism of varied life forms on other planets that we never even knew existed.

That they never beat Jordan is irrelevant, because it takes nothing away from the celestial significance the dunk had at the time. "The Dunk" was by itself, in its cosmic sense, a simplified, accurate portrait of the psyche of New York, as expressed through some inexplicable leap from the baseline. It was a visual metaphor for New York's attitude and temperament. It was the collective unconscious of New York City, wrapped up into a single athletic maneuver. "The Dunk" occupied a sacred place in the hearts of New Yorkers even before it ever happened, since while the actual, physical dunk hadn't yet taken place, the rage, triumph, and frustration expressed in the dunk had always existed and will continue to exist as long as the Knicks keep losing to teams like the Hawks and the Clippers.

"The Dunk" was symbolic of the Knicks' character, their personality, and their struggle against the then two-time defending NBA champion Chicago Bulls, the bad guys, the oppressors. The Bulls were Goliath, the seemingly unbeatable villains, fortunate sons, big-money guys in suits, the big names with gold chains and a cellphone in a stretched limo, the tax collectors, the royalty. The Knicks were the grimy street kids, thugs and hoodlums, hood rats with dirty faces and filthy fingernails, goons that fought dirty, offering toughness and hard-nosed hustle over skill. They were basketball's new bad boys, the rough defenders. They were notorious for pulling stunts like head-butting Reggie Miller, clotheslining Scottie Pippen, breaking Kenny Anderson's wrist with a flagrant foul, or brawling in Phoenix or Miami. When you went into Madison Square Garden, you knew that, if nothing else, you were going to get pushed around. The Bulls were the princes, the Knicks the paupers. "The Dunk" was a direct expression of New York's status in the rivalry between these two teams. It was an heroic statement, an affirmation of the Knicks' stance within the spiritual context of basketball. "The Dunk" was in itself a metaphor for the anguish and the faith of the downtrodden fans of New York.

Vince Carter dunked over Frederic Weis (incidentally, a former Knick hopeful.) Bulls fans, at least the ones you can find now that they're the worst team in the NBA, are fond of bringing up Pippen's nice dunk over Ewing. Let's face it: Ewing is in everyone's highlight video. On the other hand, Starks dunked over MJ himself, the very symbol of the forces oppressing the Knicks, the very archetype of the mountain the Knicks had to climb to become self-actualized winners and champions. The Knicks still have yet to climb that mountain. However, for one microcosmic flash of a beautiful, magical moment, Starks himself ascended that mountain, only briefly but not alone. And that's why it was the greatest dunk of all time.

I still think there was divine intervention on that dunk. That a 6'3 mortal could jump so high and so long is simply unfeasible. The elevation and distance he got on the jump disobeyed the laws of physics, and probably even disobeyed some New York State statutes as well. There were clearly divine forces at play. Now, obviously I don't mean to suggest that God actually physically lifted John Starks on that dunk; that would be silly and superstitious. It was probably an angel or an invisible gnome of some sort.

John Starks, any Knicks fan will tell you, had a momentary flash of magic, an awe-inspiring spark of high-flying, timeless divinity. It may well be that the spirit world decided to communicate with New York through that dunk for that one split-second, choosing to display the message of the gods in a time and place when they knew everyone would be watching. Needless to say, they conveyed their message effectively,in a blurry burst of flames and ostentatious smoke that was straight out of a dream. We all know that dream. It's that dream in which the Knicks overcome their obstacles, defeat evil, ride a wave of sorcery, and win a championship. It's a dream that New Yorkers are having less and less these days.