It was all a Dream

Flight White is still in business.

We ended up not having one able to stay and watch the whole Dream Factory event at Jam Session last night, and we might be the worse for it. Sounds like SLAM favorite James “Flight” White really represented. It’s a shame they can’t have him go for the two-dunk-titles-in-one-weekend award this evening.

Here’s a recap of last night, largely culled from NBA.com:

The D-League skills night took place at center court at the NBA Jam Session immediately after the celebrity game. The evening started out with a game of H.O.R.S.E., a three point shootout, and ending with a dunk contest. The participants for the first contest were Lance Allred, Joe Crawford, Erik Daniels and Will Conroy.

Conroy, the NBA D-League’s leading scorer, dethroned reigning champion Lance Allred when he sunk a through-the-legs-off-the-backboard lay-up for the win. It was interesting to see all the different shots these guys came up with. It appeared that they really thought about it. Right from the start guys like Lance Allred were taking complicated shots backwards from the floor while shooting the ball in reverse. And even though they missed a lot, all the shots were close.

James White got the Slam Dunk Competition off to an electric start when he hit an end-to-end jam from the baseline in his first dunk followed by a two-hand coast-to-coast slam. In the second round, White faced off against Tulsa’s Keith Clark who advanced to the second round on a perfect-scoring windmill dunk from the corner with the aid of 66ers teammate Gary Forbes. In the decisive last round, White scored a perfect 100 points (50 on each dunk) after first jumping over Conroy, who was seated and holding a ball under the basket, before slamming down a one-handed dunk. He then ended the round with an explosive full-court windmill jam. James White by no surprise won the contest which is something he’s been doing since high school. White has been jumping from the free throw line with two hands, dunking between the legs with ease, and dunking from the foul line while putting the ball between his legs for so long it seemed expected for him to win. It would be great to see him in the NBA dunk contest one day to see what he would pull out of his sleeve.

In the Three-Point Shoot-Out, the night’s second competition, Blake Ahearn, the ’08 NBA D-League Rookie of the Year, defeated Rio Grande Valley’s Ernest Scott by a score of 22 to 19, sinking four of the five money balls in the last rack, a new twist on the contest that was being tested for potential inclusion in NBA All-Star Saturday Night. Ahearn advanced to the finals having scored 23 in the first round, while Scott secured his finals spot with a first-round score of 20 points. Bakersfield’s Trey Johnson and Tulsa’s Gary Forbes finished with 16 and 18 points in the first round, respectively.