Psst. There’s a white American guy in the Slam Dunk Contest.
Houston Rockets forward Chase Budinger was among the four players announced Thursday as participants in the Slam Dunk Contest that will take place on All-Star Saturday night Feb. 25.
Budinger is the first white American player entered in the contest since Chris “Birdman” Andersen in 2004 and 2005. That didn’t go so well.
Other white American players to participate are Bob Sura (1997), Rex Chapman (1990, 1991), Tom Chambers (1987) and of course Brent Barry, who won the 1996 competition. That went much better.
Defending champion Blake Griffin and 2011 finalist JaVale McGee, whose creativity resuscitated what at times has been a blah event, are not entered this year.
Joining Budinger are fellow second-year player Paul George of the Indiana Pacers and rookies Iman Shumpert of the New York Knicks and Derrick Williams of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The competition is without an actual All-Star for the first time since 2006, when Nate Robinson defeated Andre Iguodala, Josh Smith and Hakim Warrick.
Touchy bunch aren’t ya! You Americans and your racism, Come on, it’s funny. Chase (Token White Guy) Budinger F.T.W. haha
I forgot how much hang time “Bones” Barry used to get.
I’d like to thank kantankruz for trying to reel in the faux righteous indignation.
If Chase Budinger was a purple martian with pink polka dots, and only four purple martians with pink polka dots had participated in previous Slam Dunk contests, that would be as noteworthy as the fact that he is a white American. The truth is the NBA is almost 80 percent black, and the Dunk Contest has had an even higher percentage of black participants. So a white American – or European, or martian, or whatever – crashing the party is newsworthy.
Everyone can get their PC dander up if they would like. It’s ridiculous. The fact remains that the white American NBA player – and more specifically, the good white American player – is a disappearing element in the game. It was on the verge of extinction a couple of years ago but has had a bit of a resurgence through David Lee and Kevin Love, among others.
I believe a major reason for this is because some parents direct their children away from basketball because “only black kids play that game.” That’s the real racism.
This article is an example of bigotry and should be removed immediately. The premise that a white participant in the dunk contest is somehow noteworthy is offensive. Why couldn’t a white person participate? Why does the color of the participant matter? What importance or effect while a person’s color have on the result?
There’s nothing fundamentally newsworthy or noteworthy about a person’s race – we’re born one color or another, and that’s that. Talking about a white person in the dunk contest as if it’s somehow noteworthy is the punchline of a racist joke, and it has no business on this site.
Very disappointing.
I’d stay away from this type of article. I’m not trying to be a random, indignant internet commenter, but Blake Griffin is Black because his Dad is Black? He’s not White because his Mom is White? Who gets to decide that? And what makes Spain’s Rudy Fernandez’s whiteness any different than an American whiteness? Rudy is 100% Anglo, Caucasian, etc., just like Sura (Italian-American?), and the others.
Someone should’ve listened to the mix tape soundtrack before putting it on the website