Last season, LeBron James had the greatest dunk that never was — an audacious tomahawk that, had it gone in, would have ended Draymond Green’s career, cratered Silicon Valley, and forced the Warriors to move out of Oracle three years early. He missed, Kyrie didn’t, the Cavs won, J.R. Smith lost his shirt.
A lot happened in Game 4. The Cavs won, 137–116. They won’t get swept, and they gave "blew a 3–1 lead" an unexpected new life. A guy got thrown out of the game from his courtside seats, a player got a tech from the bench, and Deron Williams came back to life. But the most important thing was LeBron got that dunk back. He ended the game with a triple-double, and a plus-32 +/-. You will forget the numbers. What you won’t ever forget (because the NBA will show this to you for the rest of your life) was the jam. In the third quarter, up 19, LeBron found himself up in the air, in a no man’s land with nothing and everything as options. So he chose to do the thing that really only he (and Gerald Green and T-Mac) could do: He threw himself a pass off the backboard.
He did an All-Star special during an elimination game in the friggin’ NBA Finals. J.R. Smith agrees with me.
When did he decide to go through with this? I think right here:
This is usually the point in the drive where he would look for a shooter, but Steph stayed home on Kyrie in the far corner. So LeBron decided to be Spider-Man. Cool. This combo of innovation, vision, and physicality is the most LeBron thing I’ve seen. This is the runner-up:
