He was a poster player. In the 1980s and 1990s, the image of Dominique Wilkins smashing the rim in mid-flight decorated the folders and hung on the walls of many basketball fans. The American forward, although born in Paris 64 years ago, symbolized that fantasy world, still a very distant universe, which was then the NBA. In that dream scenario, Wilkins was a spectacular smasher, the man who in 12 seasons with the Atlanta Hawks (1982-1994), 15 seasons in total in the American League, competed with Michael Jordan to be the king destroying hoops. In the duel for history between both stars, Dominique won the 1985 dunk contest before his majesty, and repeated his success in 1990. He was a basketball player with springs.
“It was Jordan and I, both of us competing against each other,” recalls Wilkins today, who is visiting Spain to participate in the NBA Junior European Finals in Valencia: 12 teams (six men’s and six women’s) made up of some of the best 15-year-old players from Croatia, England, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Spain; “What we did in a dunk contest is what we normally did in games. It’s nothing we had to work on especially for those occasions. Who was better? We were different in the way we approached the basket. Michael Jordan flew, he was a glider. I crushed with everything, I poured all my strength into the basket. Our way of playing in that sense was different. For me a dunk was mainly the way to motivate the public and my team. I felt that if at the beginning of the game I could make a spectacular play or a great dunk, that motivated my teammates to play hard and the fans at our house. It was a way to get an advantage.”
Wilkins lived an unrepeatable era in the mecca of basketball, the coincidence of myths like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird on the court. Even so, he does not choose to point out even one of them as the best of all time. “I don’t believe in just one player. There are several players who have marked an era. Look, Bill Russell did it. That man won 11 rings with the Boston Celtics. And Wilt Chamberlain? It’s surprising that people don’t talk about him as much as one of the best, because of the way he dominated the game. So I don’t believe in the idea of the best player of all time, because there are many who were great.”
The dunk king is still with the Atlanka Hawks, a franchise of which he is vice president of operations. From that position he has observed the evolution of the game, the change towards a more physical and faster style, and also how European basketball players have elbowed their way into the American stardom. “Today the boys have more freedom of movement due to their physical improvement, there are many pick and rolls and jump shots. And above all three-point shots. People look at the basket more all the time,” explains Wilkins, who was also a kind of pioneer when he crossed the ocean and signed up for two European adventures, with Panathinaikos (who won the Euroleague in 1996) and with Fortitudo Bologna. “I wanted to do something different,” he recalls about those experiences outside the NBA; “I had visited Greece and I loved it. So when I had the option, I went there. They made it worthwhile. Today, basketball in the United States has learned from Europe, it has changed its view regarding the style of play there. It also happened when the first Europeans came to the NBA and were surprised by the way the game is played.” All this experience has helped Wilkins to take note of foreign talent, and so the Hawks have chosen as number one in the draft the French Zaccharie Risacher, a 2.08m forward who was born in Malaga, when his father, Stéphane, played for Unicaja. “We made the best choice,” says the former basketball player.
In this scenario, Wilkins warns that “the rest of the world will have to play very well” if they want to have the slightest chance of defeating the Dream Team that LeBron James and Stephen Curry will lead at the Paris Games. And in the meantime, he observes the young talent in Valencia. “Now I have another responsibility, giving advice to the young people,” he says. Also, for example, being a judge in a dunk contest remembering those times when he flew alongside Michael Jordan.
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2024-06-29 04:01:55
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