Le dunk de la mort vs В Дунк смерти

In 1999, the Knicks infamously made one of the worst draft picks of all time when they took Frenchman Frederic Weis 15th overall, passing on Ron Artest, James Posey, and Andre Kirilenko among others. Ron Artest was the obvious choice there, as he was a hometown hero from Queensbridge who took St. John's to the Elite 8. But Scott Layden instead gambled on Weis, and in the process, sent the proud franchise on a 10 year run of futility that they are just starting to recover from.

Frederic Weis ended up being the highest ever draft pick to never play an NBA game, and he is now known mostly for Vince Carter's ridiculous dunk over him in the Olympics, "Le dunk de la mort"




For years, this was known as arguably the best in-game dunk of all time. But a new contender may have surfaced a few weeks ago when another property of the Knicks from Europe was posterized in grand fashion. The Russian 7 footer Timofey Mozgov was taking up space in the lane (as is his main function), when rookie of the decade Blake Griffin leaped over him and literally threw the ball into the hoop.




Whether this constituted an actual dunk or was just dunkalectical is up for debate, but it remains the highlight of the year in the NBA so far. Was it more impressive than "Le dunk de la mort"? Lets go to the tale of the tape:

Vince Carter vs Blake Griffin: Vince Carter, one of the more enigmatic superstars, has always seemed to rely more on ability than passion for the game. Back when he had crazy stupid ups and could jump over 7 footers, this made him a fan favorite. Now it just makes him nauseating. Blake Griffin is still in the honeymoon phase where he can seemingly do anything on the court (except make the Clippers a winner), and is as hyped a rookie as there has been since Lebron. Since he hasn't gone to his college graduation on the morning of a game 7, alienated an entire city, lost 12 inches on his vertical leap, and taken more bad shots than Josh Smith down 3-0 in a playoff series, I'll give the edge to Griffin.

Frederic Weis vs Timofey Mozgov: Both are tall white stiffs, but Mozgov has actually contributed more than humiliation to the Knicks. Mozgov reads Russian romance novels before games, while Weis probably reads the novelization of a lesser Godard movie or Gerard Depardeiu's "Green Card" before dominating a 6'7" Walloon in the paint. Weis marked the start of the Knicks decade of disaster while Mozgov will hopefully mark the beginning of their renaissance (ok, Amare probably has more to do with that). Since getting posterized is a source of embarrassment, I'm going to give the advantage in this category to Weis.

The Tiebreaker - Artist Renditions: You can't fuck with this. Case closed.