CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN In 2007, Dwight Howard tried but failed to win the Slam Dunk contest with his twelve-and-a-half-foot sticker slap. “The judges just didn’t get it,” he said. “I don’t think people realize how hard it is for a guy to get 265 pounds up in the air and do some stuff.”
This year, he was determined to wow everyone with his “stuff.” His rivals for the prize were defending champ Gerald Green (now of the Minnesota Timberwolves), Jamario Moon of the Toronto Raptors, and Rudy Gay of the Memphis Grizzlies.
Moon and Gay took their turns first and ended up with scores of 46 and 37. Then Dwight approached for his shot. But he didn’t move onto the court. Instead, he took the ball behind the backboard and lofted it up against the back of glass. As the ball rebounded back toward the stands, he leaped, caught it in his right hand, transferred it in midair to his left, and then, with his head still behind the board, jammed it through the hoop!
“Oooh!” the judges all yelled as one. Kobe Bryant, watching from the sidelines, reacted as if he’d been socked in the gut, grimacing in shocked admiration at what he’d just seen. Dwight received a perfect score of 50.
But Gerald Green’s dunk had them cheering just as loud. As he dunked the ball, he blew out a candle on top of a cupcake that his teammate Rashad McCants had set on the back of the hoop. The judges were impressed, but not enough to give Green more than 46 points.
Gay and Moon took their second dunks a few minutes later. Gay ended up with a two-dunk total of 85, Moon with 90. Green went third and received 45 points for his move.
Dwight, meanwhile, was preparing for his second attempt. He marked a spot just inside the free-throw line with tape. As he did, Jameer Nelson approached carrying a bright red cape. Dwight pulled his team jersey over his head. Beneath his jersey was another blue shirt emblazoned with the Superman symbol.
The crowd went wild. The judges leaped to their feet, laughing and pumping their fists. Dwight Howard laughed, too, obviously delighted at the response.
“Superman is in the building!” one commenter bellowed gleefully as Nelson fastened the cape around Dwight’s neck.
How super was Dwight? He launched himself so high in the air from so far away that he truly seemed to soar to the basket! It was another perfect dunk worth 50 points.
Moon and Gay were now out of the contest. Green went first in the final round. He accepted a high-lobbing pass from behind the backboard and swooped it through the net with power and grace. It was an impressive move, and yet, it didn’t earn him top marks.
Not so when Dwight took his shot. He arced the ball from midcourt to a spot on the floor below the hoop. As the ball flew through the air, he dashed forward, jumped, and caught it in his left hand at the top of its bounce. Still in the air, he tossed the ball gently against the glass, caught it in his right hand, and stuffed it. The move demanded perfect timing, a soft touch, and pinpoint accuracy, and Dwight delivered on all three counts.
“I’m leaving the building!” the commentator roared. “I’m quitting my job! I’ve never seen anything like that!”
Green followed up with a sock-footed slam, but by then everyone knew the night belonged to Dwight Howard. His final jam, in which he plucked the basketball from a mini-hoop mounted next to the big hoop, was just the icing on the cake.
“I don’t think people want to see the same old dunks,” Howard said after accepting the trophy. “They want to see something else, see some spice.”
Dwight Howard had added “spice” to the contest; he brought it to the table in the weeks that remained in the regular season, too. So did the rest of the Magic. They tore through the competition to a final record of 52 wins and only 30 losses, good enough for third place in the Eastern Conference.
Dwight had been masterful. By season’s end, he had earned a shooting average of 20.7, a full 3 points more than the previous year. His block average was the best of his career so far, 2.1 per game. He played in all 82 games for the fourth year in a row, bringing his total games-played figure to 328.
“I’ve never seen a big man with his stamina,” coach Van Gundy once said of Dwight.
But it was Howard’s amazing rebounding talent that put him head and shoulders above the rest. On April 15, he pulled down his four thousandth career rebound, making him the youngest player to achieve the milestone. He was also the youngest player to lead the league in rebounds, with a total of 1,161 and an average of 14.2 per game. That was an increase of more than 150 boards from 2006–2007, and 124 more than the second-place rebounder that season.
“I really didn’t think about the rebounding title,” Howard confessed later, adding that he was more excited about reaching the four thousand mark. “That was something I couldn’t imagine in such a short time in the league.”
Of course, there was only one title he really wanted that season, that of NBA Champion. But did he and the Magic have enough depth to stand up to the ferocity of that competition? They would soon find out.