BallinEurope, the European Basketball news site

Sadly enough for James White, a fourth dunk contest trophy was not added to his mantelpiece after this weekend NBA All-Star game festivities. In fact, after promising Dwyane Wade (and the general populace) a guaranteed win with something completely different…

…White let down those who believed after seeing him win dunk titles in Russia, Turkey and Italy by not getting out of the second round, going back not only on an earlier gauntlet-throwing while also ignoring a few key steps in the patented James White Method for winning these things as publicized by BallinEurope.

With more than a week to go before the 2013 contest, White proclaimed that “Whatever I do is going to be new. It’s not going to be seen in the NBA dunk contest. You’ve seen it maybe on YouTube, but you haven’t seen it on the NBA stage. You’ve seen windmills…”

And then White went and attempted a windmill. BiE will spare you clips of the repeated misses (easily the worst aspect of the dunk contest) and instead merely post the GIF of White’s last attempt as produced by SB Nation. You’ll get the idea.

In analyzing why White failed in his quest for dunk title no. 4, BiE goes back to the man’s own prescription to see just what went wrong…

Step #1. Start the dunking process from the opposite corner of the basket at which you will dunk. Check, White began his approach waaaaaay back. Several times.
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The best basketball video clip of the roughly half-done month? Well, about a week before James White was bagging his fourth European dunk contest crown, Zalgiris Kaunas’ Sonny Weems was earning his first in Lithuania.

Below runs not just any dunk contest highlight clip, but an amazingly edited 100-plus seconds replete with amazing angles and time-lapse special effects all backed up with the excellent “Prelude No. 11” by contemporary composer Chris Zabriskie. Gorgeous stuff.

(Note, too, that, in winning the LKL crown, Weems applied many of Cellini & White’s principles for taking such competitions – these rules work, BiE tells ya…)

LKL Žvaigždžių dienos dėjimų konkursas from Fotodiena on Vimeo.

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White demonstrating emergency step 6

All accolades and trophies aside, however, BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Enrico Cellini, notes that White has simply got this dunk contest-winning thing down to a science. Would you like to win your next dunk competition in Europe? Cellini, White and good ol’ YouTube show you how in six easy steps.

After dominating his fourth dunk contest within European all-star game weekends – previous wins include those in Turkey in 2008, Russia in 2010 and Italy last year) by displaying his trademark repertoire, James White should really work on a handy guide containing the must-do tricks for guaranteed success in any dunk contest on The Continent. It would go pretty much like this:

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BallinEurope’s man in Italy, Enrico Cellini, contributes quite a bizarre story out of league basketball there. (To think that Cibona Zagreb fans merely created an interesting image in protest of their team’s poor play.) The headline gives away the punchline so BiE won’t forestall this tale’s telling further … um, enjoy.

On January 2, Scavolini Siviglia Pesaro (then 6-6 in Italy) was supposed to be fully focused on preparing for the toughest match of the season, i.e. the Serie A game against almighty juggernaut and five-time repeat champions Montepaschi Siena. Nobody could have ever expected that the greatest challenge for the team would come from outside the court.

On the morning of the game, Pesaro officials informed media that head of a pig had been left in front of Scavolini Pesaro basketball operations offices by an indignant anonymous fan or group of fans (or rather, more appropriately, “fanatic” or “fanatics”).

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Can Childress and Big Reds Machine sweep?

This one’s exactly what it says: A grab bag of clippings and clips regarding the eight teams squaring off in tonight’s Euroleague semifinals games. Enjoy the factoids, enjoy the games!

• If it’s March, tradition tends to demand that CSKA Moscow basketball augment its collection of trophies; 2010 is proving no exception. This month saw Viktor Khryapa capping (thus far) a career year with a Euroleague Player of the Month nod; two weeks ago, Khryapa was named Russia Cup MVP as Moscow took home the hardware in the final over Unics Kazan, though it has been said that “As expected, the slam-dunk contest held at the CSKA arena before the Russian Cup final completely overshadowed the [championship match] itself.”

What’s that? Dunk contest? Awesome! Though Spartak St. Petersburg’s James White (formerly of Fenerbahce Ulker and the San Antonio Spurs) took home the prize for achieving Jordan-like flight, CSKA’s Pops Mensah-Bonsu – surely the baddest dunker in all of Euroleague – was robbed early on; you’ll know it when you see all the 9s that should have been 10s. (And by the way, what’s up with Igor Tkachenko of Unics Kazan sporting that funky CCCP gear?)

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