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Keith Strudler: Posterized

My eleven-year-old has been hounding me for weeks – he’d say months I’m sure – but at least weeks about getting posters to put up in his room. Since we moved into a new house in August, Sloan has become increasingly aware of his relatively bare walls, which pre-teens seem to believe must be filled with large prints of professional athletes doing really athletic things. So far, he’s had to suffice with taking some of my laminated newspaper articles from the 1994 and 95 Houston Rockets teams that won NBA titles – and yes, I did that. But that nostalgia will only go so far when he’s an avid fan of basketball and soccer and football players that are actually playing right now. Which means that we are on the hunt for wall sized pictures of people running, scoring, catching, and all sorts things that athletes do in the throes of competition.

But here’s one poster that we won’t be able to get. That’s one of LeBron James dunking the basketball over Jarrett Allen of the Brooklyn Nets. And that’s because it never happened. It almost happened Tuesday night when the Lakers came to New York, but when James went up for a dunk in the first quarter of an eventual loss to the trending Nets, Allen stood tall and blocked the potential greatest of all time, keeping James from dunking over the Nets 6’11” center. Now, to be clear, this puts Allen in rarified company. Of the nearly 2,000 times James has attempted to dunk the ball, he has been blocked only eight times. Which means that when Allen went up to try and stop LeBron, there was about a 1% chance he would be anything other than humiliated by sheer force. To his credit, Allen took those odds and won. Which made him a Sports Center highlight for, in his case, the right reason.

Anyone who’s ever so much as walked into a pre-teen’s bedroom knows that the dunk is the premier money shot in all of sports posters, at least around basketball. It’s sports’ equivalent of a rock star smashing a guitar – and yes, that was a Clash reference, you’re welcome. It’s so associated that when someone gets dunked on, it’s called being posterized, because you’re forever the footnote on someone’s success story. You didn’t want to be on the receiving end of Dr. J, or John Starks – who’s got a pretty nice poster shot, or Jordan, or LeBron. Which is why when someone like that comes barreling down the lane for a power dunk, most defensive players simply get out of the way just to get out of the photo.

So it’s impressive both that Jarrett Allen was willing to take his shot and that he came out unscathed. But what’s even more impressive is that this made such big news. Today, the day after a center for a below .500 basketball team has a single defensive play that did nothing more than simply prevent an athlete from scoring a two-point basket in the first half of a fairly meaningless contest in the first half of the season, that story was a lead on ESPN, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, and pretty much any other sports publication of record. That’s how impressive LeBron James is. When someone blocks one of his shots – especially a dunk – it’s front page news. People love to argue about who’s the best basketball player in history, and a lot of people love to argue against LeBron James for a whole lot of what I consider unworthy reasons. But before rendering a verdict, I’d ask everyone to consider the rarity of stories like these.

On top of that, Jarrett Allen’s resistance of LeBron’s seeming inevitability reminds us of one of the truisms of sport and its popularity, for better or worse. It’s the challenge of one person trying to physically dominate another. That’s obvious in sports like boxing, and wresting, and perhaps football. But it’s true in a whole lot of other sports as well. Like a pitcher trying to overpower a batter using everything in the arsenal, including throwing a bit high and inside. It’s a soccer player slide tackling someone on a breakaway. And it’s one giant basketball star trying to physically dunk a ball over another equally large competitor. That’s why people watch, and perhaps to some degree, why people play. And yes, I understand the beauty of the game, ball movement, touch passes in soccer and all that. But in most sports, there’s still the opportunity for one person to physically try and impose their will on another, within the boundaries of the rules of course. That’s part of the appeal, the opportunity to cheer aggression that, outside of the court or field or ring, is simply not part of a civil society. Even when you’ve about had it doing last minute holiday shopping at the mall.

That’s why this block was such a big story. And why I still have to buy a bunch of posters for my 11-year old’s wall, even if I can’t get one of LeBron James dunking over Jarrett Allen.

Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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