Iconic Warriors Dunk Tournament Elite Eight: #1 Baron on Kirilenko vs #8 Dray to Steph to KD alley-oop; plus open thread

they thunder, we ponder

After a little pause, we are going to wrap up our vitally important series. You can see all past voting at the Iconic Warriors Dunks Tournament Overview (now permanently pinned to our sidebar).

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.

#1 Baron Davis

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#8 Draymond long pass to Steph mid-air alley oop to KD*

Vote

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

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Results of Last Vote

The weighted results of last vote.

• 1% — #15 JTA dunk on JaVale (poll 5%, comments 0%)

• 97% — #7 Wiggins on Doncic (poll 87%, comments 100%)

No disrespect to JTA’s fabulous dunk, which basically got him into the All-Star Dunk Contest, but the Wiggins Dunk was just way too iconic.

Dub Nation Speaks

• Goofus (11 ♡):

  Though you may have voted I’m not ya,

  If you wanted my vote then I got ya,

  Both made me grin,

  But #SEVEN should win,

  ‘Cause I jumped up and yelled out ”Focaccia!”

• b.p. (6 ♡):

  #SEVEN - Both these plays definitely made you jump out of your seat . . . but we all know this is a squash match.

  Western Conference Finals; 4th quarter; Dubs trying to go up 3-0, IN DALLAS, and continue their march to reclaim the former glory that we here at Dub Nation have come to view as rightfully theirs/ours. And here's this run-of-the-mill drive-and-kick to Wiggins at the 3 pt line.

  We love Andrew. We love his buy-in of his role on this team; we love his tenacious defense for 40+ minutes; we love his reliable 17 points; we love his incredible smile. When Andrew catches this pass, he is Gabumon [https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/Gabumon]. Gabumon is Andrew's default state; a chill, cuddly, Rookie-level Digimon who isn't looking for trouble. Gabumon is probably not going to the rack; he is cool with the step-back 15-footer that the defense will concede and that he knows he can hit at a decent clip. But Steph must have put some extra Energy into this pass, because when the ball touches his hands Andrew evolves into Garurumon (literally a timber wolf, ha ha). Garurumon is excited to be unleashed; he wants to Run and Jump and Dunk, and their is all kinds of space in the painted area to do just that--let's gooo! But then Luka--who knows not the consequences of his actions--opts to obstruct Andrew's path to the hoop, and the situation becomes untenable. Caught in the moment, Andrew's desire overwhelms his reason and he uncages his Ultimate form, an anthropomorphic werebeast [https://digimon.fandom.com/wiki/WereGarurumon]. WiggGarurumon is fury incarnate; it feels not pity nor remorse nor fear. Luka's weak contest is an unworthy affront which WiggGarurumon rejoins with a meta-psionic mauling. His face surely a mask of blood, Luka falls in a heap to the floor, while Andrew cocks back and unleashes his fury on the rim. Once back on the ground, he roars and breaths fire at the Dallas crowd. Only the distraction of the whistle keeps him from going back to finish his meal. WiggGarurumon recedes then, but his terrible image will haunt the Dallas faithful who witnessed him that day, and Luka Doncic has slept with the light on ever since.

• Run_TMC (4 ♡):

  #SEVEN what's in the box? Luka's head!

• Hashemite Kingdom (3 ♡):

  #SEVEN

  What everyone else said.

  My two favorite dunks of last year were this one and Wiggins posterization of KAT.