J.R. Smith turned 28 years old today, hitting what should be the prime years of his career. The 6-6 guard who came straight from high school to the NBA has had his fair share of disappointments, most recently being suspended for five games for violating the league’s anti-drug policy, but he’s still one of the best bench players in the NBA.
Last season’s Sixth Man of the Year enters 2013-14 with even more expectations. He believes New York will win a title this year. If they’re to have any chance this season, he’ll need to come through and eclipse what he did last year (18.1 points and 5.3 rebounds per game).
But that’s talk for another day. To celebrate his birthday, check out J.R.’s 10 best dunks of his career.
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10. Double Alley-Oop With Iman Shumpert
This isn’t the greatest finish in the world, and if we were tackling this list more fundamentally, I probably wouldn’t even have included this play. But between the pass, then the pass back to the trailer by Iman Shumpert, and then the finish by Smith, it’s something you don’t often see in the NBA. Smith seems to be involved in a lot of these “rare” finishes. He’s creative and unique in the sense that he loves to jump off the wrong foot.
9. Darko Gets Put On A Poster
Thanks for playing, Darko. At the time, the seven-footer was averaging a little over two blocks a night so this is actually more impressive than you might think.
8. J.R. Punches One On Marcin Gortat’s Head
It’s not every day you see a guard catch an alley-oop like this, let alone finish on a starting center’s head… and the foul. Smith excels in the open floor and I doubt Phoenix’s big man even saw him coming.
7. Baseline Reverse
There’s a theme that’ll be playing out over the rest of this list: J.R. Smith loves to catch some nasty dunks against the Spurs. San Antonio shows up again and again in this top 10.
6. Put-Back Poster
Just ridiculous. Early in his career in Denver, Smith was either hanging out about 30 feet from the rim, chucking up threes (which made him super fun to play with in 2K), or he was flying around at the rim, trying to dunk everything. The Clippers never saw this coming.
5. Two-Handed Windmill
Smith is known for these off-the-wrong-leg windmills. But in this playoff matchup against the Jazz in 2010, he added a little something extra on this one: finishing with two hands. That’s harder than it looks, and it looks pretty damn difficult.
4. Reverse Alley-Oop
This is like something Vince Carter would do. You knew it was special just by checking out the reaction from New York’s bench. Because of how quickly he brought the ball up from his waist, Smith had the whole sideline ready to storm the floor.
3. J.R. Rides Up Gary Neal’s Face
This is just plain disrespectful.
2. Wild Baseline Reverse In The Playoffs
LeBron might be the better dunker. He might jump higher and he might dunk more often. He’d probably beat J.R. in a dunk contest too. But I doubt the King could ever pull off some mid-air creativity like this. How do you even describe this? A 360? A reverse? A windmill?
1. Alley-oop 360
This gets the top spot for no other reason other than the fact that I’ve never seen anyone outside of J.R. do this. You could watch the NBA every night for the next 10 years and never see this play duplicated.
What do you think is his best dunk?
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