NBA rookie dunks on LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in the same damn game
How was your Tuesday night? Guarantee it wasn't as fun as that of Malcolm Brogdon, an NBA rookie from the University of Virginia.
First, Brogdon dunked all up on star Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving — then he one-upped himself by throwing down a reverse jam over none other than LeBron James. That's right: The rookie dunked on the two best players from the defending NBA champs in the same damn game.
Here's Brogdon, a guard for the Milwaukee Bucks, taking Irving to the hole and dunking on his head.
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Not bad, not bad. But nothing compared to Brogdon's next feat.
Here he is throwing down an absolutely filthy reverse over the basketball god LeBron.
Lord have mercy, man! Now that's the good stuff.
For some astute basketball observers, of course, this recalls The Curious Case of the Jordan Crawford Dunk That Never Happened.
The year was 2009. LeBron, who had long since been an NBA superstar, was hosting an off-season camp for top college players in conjunction with Nike. Crawford, then a guard at Xavier University, dunked on James during an after-hours pickup game. It was a legendary moment, and just the type of thing that makes basketball a delightful sport to follow beyond the glittering lights of NBA arenas.
But conspiracy theories sprung forth when Nike officials confiscated videographers' tapes of the dunk. The corporate oligarchs, it seemed, did not want footage leaking of their star pitchman getting owned by a college kid.
Tuesday night's dunk by Brogdon, meanwhile, took place during an NBA game — so there's no confiscating that footage.
But nothing in the digital era can really be destroyed — here's the clip of Crawford dunking on LeBron back in 2009. (It happens just after the 30-second mark.)
Finally, Brogdon delivered a classic quote after dunking on LeBron on Tuesday night.
"Honestly, if I looked and saw it was LeBron, I might not even have gone up," Brogdon told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "He just happened to be there."
Sam Laird is Mashable's Senior Sports Reporter. He covers the wide, weird world of sports from all angles -- as well as occasional other topics -- from Mashable's San Francisco bureau. Before joining Mashable in November 2011, his freelance work appeared in publications including the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slam, and East Bay Express. Sam is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and basketball and burritos take up most of his spare time. Follow him on Twitter @samcmlaird.
