"Frederic Weis," or "The Guy Vince Carter Dunked Over"

Timofey Mozgov's name has come up a lot this week. The Knicks were reluctant to part with the 7'1 Russian center, but eventually caved under the pressure of acquiring Carmelo Anthony just before the trade deadline. Mozgov may develop into a great player one day, but he will always be remembered for that one fateful second in which he tried to stand up to Blake Griffin. Griffin left the floor, curled his left arm around the back of Mozgov's head, and proceeded to direct it towards his groin area. All while throwing down a ferocious slam.
No matter what Mozgov accomplishes in the NBA, that will be his legacy. The first and probably not last person to get Blake Griffin's nuts planted squarely in his face.
Frederic Weis, the 7'2 French center, received a similarly embarrassing fate in the 2000 Olympics (shown above). Fortunately for Weis, this came before the "instant news" era of the Internet and at least saved his name from being remembered infamously. Instead, we got to see the Vince Carter's dunk on every Sportscenter highlight reel of the summer over "some 7'2 French guy."
Interestingly enough, Weis was actually drafted 15th overall in the 1999 draft by the Knicks the summer before the Olympics. He underwent back surgery before getting drafted and credits his injuries as the reason why he never made it to the NBA. The Knicks traded Weis' rights to the Rockets in 2008 for no other than Patrick Ewing, Jr. Who says the Knicks were irrelevant the last decade?
Weis peaked in 1999 with French club Limoges, averaging 13 points and 7 rebounds a game. He was priased for his good hands and footwork, and was thought to be the second coming of Zydrunas Ilgauskus.
Weis had played professionaly for five years with Limoges before being selected by the Knicks, and then opted for a year of basketball in Greece instead of the NBA. He spent the last decade playing basketball professionaly in Spain, and has returned to Limoges to play this year.
Weis isn't much of a factor anymore, playing only 12 minutes a game and averaging a paltry 1.8 points per game. He's 33 years old and likely near the end of his career.
When asked in 2005 if being remembered for the Vince Carter dunk bothered him, he responded, "Why? I didn't do anything. It was just him doing something incredible. I can only imagine...If he jumped over me, he can jump over anybody! If people laugh, I laugh too. At least I can say I once played against him."
Isn't that a great attitude to have? It's not that Weis was bad, Carter was just that good. There's only so many special talents out there, the rest of us are either witnesses, or in the way.
I'm interested in hearing what Mozgov has to say about Griffin's dunk in ten years.

Blake Griffin In Person

I have a mini basketball hoop that hangs from the top of my closest door. I love it so much in fact, that I wrote about it a few months ago. With the 2010-11 NBA season in full swing, I've practicing quite a bit. I still can't make an open 10-footer consistently, but I have come up with a few interesting dunks.
Over the weekend, I threw the ball off the wall, caught it in my overextended right hand, faded away in the air, and tomahawked the dunk home. The 23-year old me was pretending to by the 21-year old Blake Griffin.
Just yesterday, my girlfriend asked me, "Blake Griffin? (I add the question mark because she was looking for confirmation that she had the name correct). He plays for the Clippers, right?"
"Yeah."
"Good, we're going to see him play on the 18th. I want to see those freckles."
My girlfriend, by her own admission likes weird looking people. Joakim Noah, Blake Griffin, me -- it's only fitting that she'd base my Christmas gift not only around the game I love most, but a chance for her to see freckles.
I became hysterical like a 15-year old Twilight fan waiting for the midnight showing. "Blake Griffin? Oh my gizzod, Blake Griffin? Let me help you find tickets."
I spent all of last night, a good three hours, watching Blake Griffin YouTube highlights and looking up Shawn Kemp's career numbers.
Kemp seems to be the logical historical comparison to Griffin. They're about the same size, Griffin is a little bulkier than the pre-Cleveland Kemp, they're both way more athletic that you'd expect someone their size to be, and they each produce(d) at least one highlight reel dunk a game.
During Kemp's peak years with the Sonics in the mid-90s, he averaged about 18 points and 11 rebounds a game. Griffin is currently at 20 points and 11 rebounds a game, in his rookie year. You saw that right, the rookie Blake Griffin, on a bad team without a Gary Payton, is currently outperforming Shawn Kemp in his peak years. Scary.
My favorite Griffin YouTube video is the one below, taken from Griffin's 44-point game against New York on November 20th.



Everyone has seen the first dunk. Griffin curls his hand around the back of 7'1 Timofy Mozgov, raises up, and the symbolism is clear. It's this type of quiet cockiness that I love about Griffin's game. He doesn't posture and pose after the dunk, in fact, his teammates are more excited than he appears to be. But to even have the audacity to redirect a man's head towards your...um, lower body, speaks volumes. That move was meant to show his opponent up, in a disrespectful, yet legal, and less obviously boisterous way than say, pounding his chest and standing over an opponent.
Griffin's second dunk in the video is less ballyhooed, but even more spectacular to me. This time forward Danilo Gallinari is victimized. I'm starting to think Griffin may have a little Kevin Garnett in him -- the part that hates European players.
Watch carefully at the slow motion part starting at the 45 second mark. In mid-air, Griffin uses his left arm to basically remove Gallinari's outstretched left arm from the picture. The phrase "A man amongst boys" gets thrown around a lot, but I can't think of a better visual representation of that saying.
Griffin's mid-air discarding of Gallinari's defensive effort reminds me of the time he hit his head on the backboard in college while dunking the ball. Griffin is going to get to the basket, it doesn't matter if there's a 7'1 center, lanky left arm, or a backboard in his way. He doesn't bowl over defenders (LeBron) or weave through them (Rondo), he simply removes them. I'm not sure we've seen an NBA player who does this with the ease that Griffin does. The majority of the time it seems like he's playing on a mini hoop against imaginary defenders.
While we'll be sitting too high to get a glimpse of Griffin's freckles, a bird's eye view should be just fine to witness his offensive prowess. I'm just glad I'll be able to say I was there for a moment of his rookie season. The start of what I think is going to be a very special NBA career.