Incredible slam dunks are living proof that humankind need not be held down by mere gravity.
They literally and figuratively elevate basketball and are at the heart of “Magic in the Air: The Myth, the Mystery, and the Soul of the Slam Dunk,” a must-read jam of a book by Philadelphia Inquirer sportswriter Mike Sielski.
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In “Magic in the Air,” Sielski traces the dunk’s murky you-had-to-be-there origins through its explosion on New York City playgrounds, in the free-wheeling American Basketball Association and the stuffy National Basketball Association and onto how the act itself became a global arbiter of hipness, even though today, airborne experimentation is being sacrificed at the altar of ground-bound three-point stasis.
From the city Dr. J put on the map, Sielski spoke to me about fellow hometown skywalker Kobe Bryant, the “Lew Alcindor Rule,” the unknown Dr. Dunk, and the greatest slam dunk ever.
Q. Before we get into “Magic in the Air,” I want to ask about your 2022 book “The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality.” What was it like researching and writing both in the wake of the tragedy and the thick of the pandemic?
From an author standpoint, it was a combination of excitement and frustration. I had visions of a Kobe Bryant biography with new revelations and a side of him that hasn’t been explored generating a lot of interest and having packed signings. Instead, I was asked to do a virtual signing at a Los Angeles bookstore, and I thought, ‘How do we even do that?’ It was simply bad timing, but obviously, there was nothing anyone could do about it. “The Rise” did well though, interest in Kobe following his death was extremely high. I think it’s an evergreen book that people will go back to when revisiting his incredible life. But I’d just as soon not remember the Philly book launch party we held during Omicron where half the invitees couldn’t make it because they had another bout with Covid.
Q. How do you think Bryant’s legacy has changed in the five years since the crash? It feels like he’s grown in stature on-and-off the court since his death.
We all love redemption stories, and a thing I wrote about is it’s what separates Kobe Bryant from Michael Jordan, who got caught up in a small gambling scandal, one that probably made him more relatable to a lot of fans, but who never had to “come back” from anything like the alleged assault case in Colorado. Kobe was so young, had the world in the palm of his hand and came very close to throwing it all away, his freedom included.
He started his personal rehabilitation as a player, but I think his reputation fully started to change after he retired. He became kind of a counselor-in-chief for anyone who sought out his advice. Kobe was so single-minded on the basketball court, I don’t think any of us expected him to become an author, filmmaker, a champion for women’s basketball, a girldad, etc. People were curious and hopeful about Kobe’s future. In dying so young, alongside his daughter, he’s become a global touchstone for becoming a better person, that’s the perception anyway. How much of his personal growth is true, I can’t say, but I do know he was hyper-aware of his image.
In 2007, I asked him about a rumor late in his career that he wanted to play for the Sixers. Kobe looked at me and I could feel him weighing, ‘What is the right thing to say?’ and answered that he’d thought about it all the way back in high school at Philadelphia’s Lower Merion. It simply wasn’t true. He always wanted to play for the Lakers.
Q. Let’s turn to “Magic in the Air.” How did you conceive of the idea of telling a history of the sport through the lens?
One of the main things that piqued my interest was the NCAA banning dunks for a decade [from 1967 to 1976]. I knew that happened and took it for granted, but never really understood why, never considered that, in 1967, a room full of White men sat in a room and decided to outlaw it because of a Black superstar, UCLA’s Lew Alcindor. [Often referred to as “the Lew Alcindor rule” after the player who inspired it, who would, of course, later change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.]
You would have to be totally ignorant of American social history of the time not to put two and two together. I thought that could be a stand-alone chapter, which is how I structured the book, each telling its own unique story of the dunk at various points in basketball history. They’re individual feature stories weaved together with a basic common theme that dunks are the soul of basketball. I took the framework of my friend Tyler Kepner’s book “K,” which does the same thing for baseball with ten pitches.
Q: Isn’t it a delicious irony that Kareem had to adapt with the skyhook, the greatest single weapon the NBA has ever known?
Kareem didn’t technically come up with it at UCLA; he’d first utilized it in high school at Power Memorial Academy, but he certainly refined it and made it unstoppable for the rest of his long career. The craziest thing is that if his renowned coach, John Wooden, had said one word about how stupid eliminating dunks was, it never would’ve happened. But he hated dunks! Never mind the racial implications – you’ve hamstrung your own player!
Q: I’ve been following the NBA for more than 40 years and I had never heard of “Dr. Dunk.” Can you tell us a bit about him and why he’s unknown?
Darnell Hillman of the Indiana Pacers was the winner of the NBA’s first dunk contest, held during Game Six halftime of the 1977 Finals. This was at a time when NBA TV ratings were below college, a few years before Magic and Bird and then Jordan, came into the league and it became a cultural juggernaut. It was a 1970s era without the stylish veneer of cool the NBA cultivated in the ’80s and ’90s, a period the league doesn’t seem to want to revisit.
It’s a shame because Hillman is an amazing guy and as basketball folklore, his story should be celebrated. “Dr. Dunk” wore a royal blue warm-up pullover with “BOTTLE SHOPPE” in white across the front, a shirt he’d been given from the owner of an Indianapolis liquor store. That’s the good stuff right there.
Q: Speaking of the dunk contest, it routinely gets criticized for not being what it once was, but there is still nothing like watching men fly like this year’s threepeat champ Mac McClung, who has a very fun chapter in your book.
McClung has been wild because he’s upended all expectations. He’s small, White, and doesn’t even play in the NBA, all of these outward elements separating him from accomplished stars. People watch McClung’s wild jams and wonder, ‘How can he possibly do that?’ The sense of wonder is central to all acrobatic dunking in itself. It’s why fans still have such fondness for short kings Spud Webb and Nate Robinson.
Two permanent fixes the NBA could apply to the dunk contest to, as discussed, have a height limit on participants, or raise the height of the basket, which I argue in the book the league should consider for actual games. The NBA needs to bring back aesthetics and flow and not have stationary guys like PJ Tucker in the corner waiting to shoot threes like old men at the YMCA. Part of the reason I don’t enjoy the NBA as much anymore is because creativity has been dialed way back in the name of efficiency. A player posterizing another player – or getting blocked – at the rim electrifies an arena.
It’s why decades on, we all remember Scottie Pippen hammering on Charles Smith and John Starks throwing down on Horace Grant. Give me Allen Iverson shooting 10-25 with improvisation, flair, and moves that take your breath away over the snoozefest of today. A lot of standing around and far fewer guys getting challenged at the cup.
Q: Let’s wrap up with the obvious one, what is your favorite dunk of all time?
In “Magic in the Air,” I say the greatest is Julius Erving’s “Rock the Cradle” over Michael Cooper in January of ‘83. It was a sign of what was to come for the 76ers later that season. They finally, after multiple Finals defeats, got over the Lakers hump and swept to win the trophy.
I’ll add a jam that’s not in the book, go full circle here and come back to Kobe. In a high school state semifinals game against defending champs Chester, in overtime, he weaves through their entire team, throws it down, and flexes afterward. The famed packed Palestra went nuts. The camera angle is kind of looking up at Kobe and you just shake your head. It’s freakin’ unbelievable a high school kid dunks like that.