Open Thread & Iconic Warriors Dunk Tournament: #2 Barnes reverse on Randolph vs #15 Juan Toscano-Anderson on JaVale

They throw it down, we vote it up

Most Iconic Warriors Dunk Tournament

The question is simple: What is the most iconic Warriors dunk?

To settle this extremely important matter, we will have a straight single elimination bracket tournament. You might say, wait isn’t this just an excuse to rewatch fantastic dunks? Of course not, this is purely for science.

DNHQ commenters nominated a number of dunks. I filtered out 16 based on whether I could find an official NBA or ESPN YouTube video about the play. The reasoning is simple: How iconic can a play be if it doesn’t have its own video?

I considered determining the seeding using the same strategy as NCAA March Madness Committees — “pulling it out of my butt” — but I opted to seed the plays based on the number of views the official video had. Humans must make the final decision. Humans like you.

I suggest for this very scientific process that you carefully view each dunk and put the volume on loud.

#2 Barnes reverse on Randolph

#15 JTA dunk on Javale

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Vote

To vote, you can use the Substack poll here or write a comment including exactly one hashtag #TWO or #FIFTEEN. Comment votes with explanation are worth 10 poll votes.

Results of Last Vote

The weighted results of last vote.

• 38% — #3 Steph on Lowry (poll 36%, comments 39%)

• 59% — #14 Webber on Barkley (poll 54%, comments 61%)

#14 pulls off the upset!

I learned long ago that the key to maximum social media clicks is to put “Steph” and “dunk“ in the same title. And it’s funny to think that the Big Three of Steph, Klay and Dray all bring a bit of drama when they dunk: will they make it? I also suspect the coaching staff told Steph to stop trying to dunk because it’s just not worth it compared to the injury risk.

As for the Webber dunk. A legendary dunk in my favorite basketball commercial. The other drama of Webber leaving and even having Barkley going HAM against GSW in revenge for the commercial… that all makes it all the more an iconic dunk for me.

Iconic Warriors Dunk Tournament Comments…

Purely scientific investigation

• Five Alarm Freddy (5 ♡):

  This is going to be interesting.

  That Webber dunk is a troubling one for me. It brought me such joy and promise. We were going to finally be on the national stage, Web was going to be our savior, Nellie at long last was going to be appreciated for his mad genius, Mully was going to be the savvy vet, Spree was looking like a star himself-- it was all so exciting!... but then the Warriors happened. Like it always did.

  Then Web turned into Tom Gugliotta. Then Donyell Marshall... and I woke up. The dream was over. I remember something about Rony Seikaly and Bimbo Coles and how I was supposed to be excited.

  But seeing Steph Curry give a small glimpse into his Psycho Steph personality, knowing all those years of pain and heartbreak were soon going to be replaced with basketball euphoria, there is no way you can get me to vote against #THREE(zero).

• Trogdor (5 ♡):

  One thing I do love about clips of Steph is that you can really tell which part of the Curry era we're in just by looking at him. This is very much still in his "baby faced assassins" stage.

• Run_TMC (4 ♡):

  I hate that you sucked me in to voting on these. I have a rule (I'm not sure if I've followed the rule in other votes, but I do have it) that I don't vote for dunks if that player left the team by choice and I'm still bitter.

  Another way to look at it. If both dunks were by the same anonymous player which one would you vote for. No. scratch that. that leads to the wrong answer.

  Ok. then I also like to add to the ranking how fired up the player was afterwards. yeah, that works.

  #THREE

• notoriousA.B.E. (4 ♡):

  Just realized, do you think the reason Chuck hates us to this day is because of that dunk? They should make a new commercial with the players at their current age talking about that dunk.

• g8tgod (4 ♡):

  No question that the Webber dunk is superior in every way. The athleticism. The audacity. It became a commercial, for crying out loud. But the contest is the 'iconic Warriors dunk tournament,' and I hate what that dunk came to symbolize: the promise of greatness dashed by clashing personalities, stupid trades, and a general sense of cursedness.

  The Steph dunk would have been average by a lot of measures, but a) it was Steph Curry and b) the post-dunk expressiveness by Curry revealed the white-hot competitor that lurks under the affable, smiling exterior. I'll vote #THREE.

• stopnpop (3 ♡):

  #FOURTEEN

  They made a commercial about it! And I actually remember it. It's weird to vote against Steph but if there's something he's not great at, it's iconic dunks (I guess?).

• Trogdor (3 ♡):

  #FOURTEEN for me! I smell the first upset coming!

  Come on, a rookie dunking over the reigning MVP? Not just anyone, but over Barkley, which makes it that much sweeter. If the criteria is the "most iconic" then I don't know if you can get any more iconic than a dunk that was turned into a Nike commercial, and was part of the narrative in Webber winning ROY. He's still our most recent ROY, at that.

  Behind the back, in game, over the MVP??? Curry's dunk was nice, but let's be honest... it's only really special because Steph did it.