There are poster dunks, and then there are just nice dunks. Evan Turner‘s fast break slam over the outstretched arm of LeBron James, was in the latter category. We’re also getting a little tired of the overemphasis on poster imagery as the go-to phrase to describe a nice slam, but not one we’ll remember beyond the night it happened.
You aren’t going to remember Turner’s slam a week from now, we promise. However, you will remember Michael Carter Williams‘ almost quadruple-double to start his NBA career. The odds on MCW’s ROY bid just got a lot worse, so I hope you put your bet in before last night’s explosion.
Back to the Turner’s dunk over LeBron. Twitter exploded with people talking poster, and how Turner embarrassed LeBron with the dunk. That simply isn’t true. Here are a couple versions, including the slo-mo artistic rendering, via NBA.com, we turned into a gif:
Our co-founder disagrees with my assessment and believes because LeBron jumped, it’s noteworthy, though he also agrees the term “poster” is over-used. LeBron did attempt to block Turner — you can see ‘Bron gets a finger on the ball — but it’s not enough to stop Turner’s two-handed momentum, and the dunk is finished. That’s not a poster, though, it’s a really good play by Turner against a great defender.
Now let’s all go back to overreacting about Carter-Williams.
Did Evan Turner put LeBron James on a poster?
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