Remembering a Play: Vince Carter and the Olympic Dunk of Death
Photo by James Morgan/Shutterstock
It’s a fine line between imitation and honoring someone, and this new Splinter sports vertical will be careful about adhering to the Deadspin ethos of never sticking to sports without stepping on the toes of what is frankly my favorite website: The Defector.
We want to honor Deadspin/Defector’s Remembering a Guy series in Splinter’s new sports vertical, which has evolved past being just a web series and become a permanent fixture in the culture now. We will not remember guys—I think David Roth and company may have remembered all of them by this point anyway—but we will periodically Remember a Play here at Splinter, as we dedicate blogs to plays and moments that connect sports to the wide range of human emotions.
I’ll kick this series off with the greatest in-game dunk in the history of basketball that still makes me cackle with glee every time I see it 24 years later.
I grew up playing baseball the most, but basketball was my first love. Few things made me more excited as a kid than awesome basketball plays, and Vince Carter was one of my favorite players. As long as I live, I will never forget the time he dunked poor Frédéric Weis into the Earth’s core at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
Goodness. Gracious.
Frédéric Weis is seven foot two!
And Vinsanity dragged his nether region across the top of his head!
All due respect to the non-Nikola Jokic GOAT, but they should have changed the Jordan logo to this the moment it happened.
The dunk. The scream. Nearly punching Kevin Garnett’s lights out while celebrating it. The whole thing is just peak sports. It’s the greatest play in the history of basketball. Even the French announcers ascended to a higher plane of consciousness when it happened.
And to do it in the Olympics with the whole world watching? For anyone who grew up on the 1992 Dream Team, this was some primo shit. This is what American basketball excellence looks like, and it is a perfect beginning to this ongoing series where Splinter sports Remembers a Play.