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yes and no. lebron could be an epic contest dunker if he put his mind to it. he can touch 12' and he's strong as shit, there's no doubt in my mind he could do something ridiculous like a two-basketball reverse elbow hang if he put some effort into practicing it. but he won't, and that's fine: it wouldn't help him be a better basketball player. and i guess that's my point. dunking is a specialty now for some leapers with elite talent and athleticism, and guys who are basketball specialists can't go toe to toe anymore because they spend their time doing something that makes them millions of dollars instead.

none of vince's dunks are as great as the kilganon double reverse elbow hang. none. and he's 3-4 inches taller than kilganon is.

the last dunk is amazing. it's funny to look back at the progenitors, it's only 12 years ago that he did that, 15 years since vince and obviously longer since jordan/wilkins and before that dr. j, but now none of the best/most creative dunkers in the world play in the NBA, except maybe gerald green. there are some guys who can really fly (looking at you, zack levine), but pretty much any of the top youtube stars would annihilate the NBA dunk contest.* you can tell from richardson's narration, he and arenas were making it up on the spot. there are dudes - famous dudes, whose names are known by hundreds of thousands of people - who spend all day thinking about and practicing dunks.

there's a point in there somewhere, i swear to god. i guess just that the internet changed everything.

*except that no one gets pumped about a ringer. part of the fun of the NBA contest for a long time was that the guys were already superstars and you got to see them show off in a way they couldn't otherwise. the youtube dunkers will never be that. and non-superstar NBA players are boring. the only NBA dunk contest dunks that come immediately to mind from the last ten years are green with the cupcake candle and javale with two rims.

^^^ i don't think it was actually telling me anything that i didn't already know. when i feel good, i feel good, and when i feel slow i feel slow.

in other news, turns out being sick blows. low-grade fever and the lymph nodes in my neck are like golf balls. was going to get my heart rate up and do some stretching at the gym today but instead i went home early from work, lay in bed for two hours without going to sleep, and watched tv. hope i'm clear-ish by tomorrow.

sucks man. this is why i "retired" from ultimate frisbee. ankle sprains are a biiiiiiiitch.

looks okay, suggest more sprint volume though. like start with 8 reps.

of course it's easier to run midfoot in vibrams, the shoe doesn't have padding that makes your heel closer to the ground than the rest of your foot!

a running jump is the translation of horizontal speed to vertical speed, crudely speaking. the faster you can go horizontally while still converting a large portion of that speed to your vertical jump, the better. adding steps is a way to learn how to go faster toward the hoop while still under control. your first step is always going to be slow, and each subsequent step should accelerate you toward the hoop. in your practice run-ups there (off of what i would call three steps, not two) you're just bouncing toward the hoop in a kind of curvy run, not adding speed with each step. i will take vid sometime soon to show you what i mean.

in the meantime here's a t0ddday progression i did about a year ago. it's bad - i was not jumping well - but you can still see how each time i take an extra step out, i'm using the extra distance to go faster into the plant.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4l5FQ8uyMA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4l5FQ8uyMA</a>