Photo: Todd Warshaw (Getty Images)
Even if soccer, football, or baseball are your main sports, there’s no denying the appeal that dunks have. They are more exciting than scissor kick goals, Hail Mary touchdowns, and home runs. So when a player is known for his dunking ability his name gets remembered long after he stops terrorizing rims. The former NBA player Shawn Kemp is one of the most prolific dunkers of all time, and he especially impressed basketball fans with how much energetic and athletic his dunks were.
Now Vince Carter is still the undisputed king of dunking, and Russell Westbrook might be the most explosive rim wrecker in the game right now, but both of them are far shorter than Kemp – 6 ft 6 in and 6 ft 3 in respectively. The power forward shattered rims with emphatic power and agility while being 6 ft 10 in tall!
Kemp spent 14 seasons in the National Basketball Association (1989 – 2003) and has played 1,051 games during that time, which puts him on the #94 on the list of NBA’s most active players. The PF did that by playing for Seattle SuperSonics (1989–1997), Cleveland Cavaliers (1997–2000), Portland Trail Blazers (2000–2002), and Orlando Magic (2002–2003 ). Although, he is most known for his time at the SuperSonics where he caught lobs thrown by the also legendary Gary Payton.
So while Shawn Kemp was a prolific defender and is 48th on the NBA list of players with the most career blocks – with 1,279 denials, yet it was his dunks that we will remember him for the most. He really took into the idea that a lot of NBA players share – it’s not a SLAM dunk if your feet hit the floor before the ball does! It’s something that made his image, like Iman Shumpert’s hair, and that’s one of the things that made the Shawn Kemp shoes so popular amongst NBA fans.
When people want to argue about the point that today’s NBA players are far more athletic than the ones of the past they usually pull the Kemp card. Shawn was truly ahead of its time, a freak of nature and dedication, but surely an exception to the rule.
The NBA published a top 10 dunks video of Shawn Kemp back in 2009 and it is truly supreme. Our favorite is number three, the dunk that skyrocketed Shawn Kemp net worth, as it has all the elements of a perfect dunk – power, agility, hangtime, originality.
But The Reign Man was too good of a dunker to be confined to just mere 10 dunks, and we have a couple of the most notable ones here.
Shawn Kemp took no time to introduce himself to the league, he was rocking baskets like this in his rookie year! It seems like he slams the ball down so hard on this putback dunk that it doesn’t even touch the net.
That’s the athleticism, speed, and power that made Kemp the horror of rim defenders during the ’90s. And the after-dunk reactions and taunts. He would get a lot of technical fouls if he was playing today, but would also have an insane fan base.
Besides being a six-time NBA all-star player and three times All-NBA second team player, Shawn Kemp also represented the United States at the international level, winning the World Championship in 1994. Here he is soaring through the air in the USA jersey. This dunk almost looks like CGI.
And if all these Shawn Kemp dunks haven’t quenched your hunger for rim attacks, you can check out another video NBA put out with 50 of Kemp’s best dunks!
What is your favorite Shawn Kemp dunk and where do you put him on your list of all-time dunkers?
