Remember when Blake Griffin jumped over (the hood of) a Kia car in the dunk contest? Griffin's foray into the dunk contest was one of the most highly anticipated in history, and instead wound up as a hyper-commercialized (literally) stunt. The dunk contest is by its very nature inauthentic, but the degree of formulaic construction involved really took something away from Griffin's performance.
The Clippers star appeared on Barstool Sports' Pardon My Take podcast Monday and revealed that his initial plan for the dunk contest was way, way cooler. Transcription via Sports Illustrated:
"I wanted to jump over a convertible, but I wasn't allowed to. It had to be a Kia Optima," Griffin said. "I wanted to have Baron Davis and some of my teammates roll out in a convertible, and then just toss it straight up and jump over the whole thing, instead of just the hood.
"I don't know if you guys have stood next to a Kia Optima, but it's a pretty tall vehicle, and there's no way I was going to make it over the entire thing, over Baron Davis in the sunroof. So I opted for the hood, and then everyone was pissed that I jumped over the hood, like, 'that was super easy,' so it was just a lose-lose situation for me."
Source: Blake Griffin wanted convertible at 2011 dunk contest.
The only thing that would have made this dunk better is if when they rolled out, his Clippers teammates had been blasting "Fantastic Voyage" by Coolio. They would have had to come out in a yellow or lime green convertible, but it would have been cool.
Griffin also revealed (as noted by SI) that Kia was not happy he named his son Ford. Commercialism is weird.
The cool thing about the dunk context with Zach LaVine the past two years (and Aaron Gordon this year) has been how organic it's felt. Nothing seems forced or designed, it's just cool dunks. This story shows why that element matters and what the unfortunate opposite is.
HT: For The Win
