Basketbawful reader flohtingPoint reminded me of this sick dunk Kevin Johnson fed to Hakeem Olajuwon back on May 15, 1994. As Mr. Point put it: "Man, they sculpted that dunk out of bronze and gave it to KJ for his retirement trophy."

The Suns didn't really do that...but they should have. (Edit: I was very, very wrong about that. More tomorrow.) Not many players got to use Hakeem as an extra in their poster, at least not while The Dream was in his prime. (The Toronto Raptors' version of Hakeem doesn't count. For anything. Do not bring it up again.) Historical footnote: KJ had 38 points (15-for-31) and 12 assists in that game, but the Suns lost 107-96 despite perfect shooting nights from both Joe Klein (3-for-3) and Oliver Miller (0-for-0).


Of course, Hakeem, being Hakeem, got his revenge just two games later. Oddly, the Suns won that one 103-89.


Muchas gracias to Wormboy for the links.

Labels: , , , ,

8 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
nice block

Blogger Jesse said...
Once in a blue moon KJ would get pissed off and go dunk on someone way too big for him to be dunking on. If I remember that game correctly he was pretty pissed off about losing and tried to single handedly win the game. That dunk was probably the best in his career, but he had a few others that were awe inspiring for a 6'1 guard.

Mark Eaton didn't really even try to block it, but he did get dunked on by a little man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAEoMsHHfa4&feature=related

Over Hot Rod Williams:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqoSdFdVlzo&feature=related

The funny part about the Hot Rod dunk is that they later became teamates, and I remember one pregame show they, and I don't know who thought this would be a good idea had the two sit down and talk about it.

What's Hot Rod supposed to say? "Man, that sucked."

As a native of Phoenix, it's pretty much impossible to not have loved KJ.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
they really should have given him that trophy. Weird though I always had it in my mind that the dunk and the block both happened in the same game.

Blogger LooseChange said...
hey basketbawful. due to my undying love for #7, i had to pass this along:

http://www.nba.com/suns/news/kjohnson_scrapbook_page3.html

take a look at the last picture. the suns organization did have the dunk statue made as a gift for kj on his retirement night. amazing.

KJ FOR MAYOR!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Hakeem wasn't posterized, he was statue-ized!

Mike S

Anonymous Anonymous said...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-W5z8FaaRkM&feature=user

Blogger Unknown said...
take a look at the last picture. the suns organization did have the dunk statue made as a gift for kj on his retirement night. amazing.

lol, yea I was there for that occasion, Suns were playing the Kings, it was the last B-Ball game I'd go to before joining the military.

Houston fans were raging pissed about the trophy, some still holding bad blood to this day. Dunno what they're pissed about though, Charles Barkley got a national commercial made about him when Chris Webber slammed it home on him. Chuck got the last laugh by dropping 56 on Golden State. Houston got theirs with back to back titles...

Anonymous Anonymous said...
the fans in the second vid are all happy and clapping, yeah!1