As we wind down to the end of the regular season, there’s a perception that teams are starting to coast. This means that they don’t need to invest as much time into training or practicing, but more into resting to prevent potential fluke injuries (hello Joel Embiid and Patrick McCaw) or potentially rest-related injuries (remember Kyrie Irving, or when Kobe tore his Achilles in 2013).
However, with rest, comes opportunity for younger players show off their skills. This could be as simple as a 3rd string point guard getting an extra 10 minutes a night (look at the Mavs) or what we’re more interested in, an explosive young player learning the game.
March’s dunks of the month have a good variety of young players who are relatively unknown, to the grandest superstar in the league today. Combinations of athleticism and agility, with power and explosiveness were demonstrated in the March version of our dunks of the month.
5. Dennis Smith Jr. shows off after the dunk contest
DSJ was one of the most exciting point guards to come out of the draft in 2017. He’s got an extremely explosive game and is the future of the Mavericks organization. With his entrance into the dunk contest, Smith had plans to advance to the second round and to use J.Cole as part of his dunk (shouts to Amin Elhassan for dropping knowledge on a podcast that can’t be named anymore..).
He’s a creative dude and whenever there is an opportunity, the dude shows out. In this instance, Smith leaked out after getting the strip on the defensive end. He caught the ball at the 3 point line, took one dribble, gathered, and flushed down a smooth windmill leaving between the restricted area and the dotted line. The dunk was smooth and effortless, signs of a real dunker.
4. Jamal Murray blesses J.J. Redick
In his second year, Murray has completely taken over the point guard duties for the Nuggets, although he’s naturally an off guard (similar to Jamal Crawford and Lou Williams). He has the skill and athleticism to score the ball, and is continuing to learn how to integrate his teammates into plays.
On this play, Murray got the steal around his own foul line, dribbled up and dunked over noted rim-defender J.J Redick. There wasn’t much that was spectacular about Murray’s dunk except that he completed rocketed over Redick, and put him in the poster. The dunk was powerful and the explosiveness is rarely seen from the second year guard.
3. Welcome, to Lithuania
Our second sophomore has entered the list this month, although he’s not nearly as much of a name as Jamal Murray. Dorian Finney-Smith went undrafted in the 2016 draft after 4 years playing NCAA ball. As a rookie, he played in 81 games for the Mavericks last year playing around 20 mpg.
This year, he’s spent most of his time recovering from left knee quadriceps tendinitis so he hasn’t touched the floor much. That didn’t stop him from taking advantage of his playing time in Toronto in mid-March when he completely hammered down a dunk over Jonas Valanciunas. He cut baseline, and then turned the corner to completely catch JV with a vicious one-handed slam. The best part of the dunk wasn’t the poster, but the Hulk-flex to really emphasize what he just did.
2. LeBron just keeps going
We’ve all heard it a million times this year, LeBron is having his best offensive season of his career in his 15th year, a truly mesmerizing feat. He continues to impress us with his offensive knowledge, power, and skill while reminding us that he would vote for himself for MVP.
After spending a speculated $1.5 million on his body annually, LeBron seems to have completely given up on D while still dominating offensively. In this instance, he shows us how easy it is for him to crush his opponents. Although he’s not firing a pass cross-court to a corner shooter, LeBron still dominated 2 Nets players here by just elevating and then elevating some more. These are the types of dunks that are not as common in the NBA. Just when you think he peaked in his jump, he continued to go up and completely embarrassed Joe Harris AND Dante Cunningman.
1. DeMar DeRozan saves Toronto
DeMar DeRozan has been a polarizing player in Toronto essentially since he came into the league. Coming in to the league, DeRozan was heavily criticized for not having a 3 point shot and not being able to dish the ball to his teammates.
With the game on the line, DeRozan got the ball from an inbound and went straight to the rack at the other end of the floor. He didn’t slow down, he didn’t hesitate, and he didn’t go up soft. He did what every old talking head says to do, put your head down and go straight to the rim. That’s exactly what he did, as he took his last dribble at the 3 line, started his gather with long strides and leapt off at the dotted line and put down a thunderous 2 handed slam on Anthony Tolliver. The dunk was vital in getting the game into overtime, where DeRozan eventually made the final pass to Fred Van Vleet for the game winning three in the corner.
