Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Rudy Gay uses YouTube for Slam Dunk Contest

I had meant to post this a while back when the actual slam dunk contest was on, but I had actually forgotten to post it. This article was taken from ESPN.com discussing how Rudy Gay wanted ideas for the dunk contest and for people to post videos on certain dunks that he would reenact during the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.

Rudy Gay has turned to the Internet for extra inspiration for this year's slam dunk contest at NBA All-Star Weekend in New Orleans. The Memphis Grizzlies swingman has posted his request on the video sharing site You Tube, asking dunkers around the world to submit their best throw-down. Gay plans to emulate the best of those dunks at the contest.

Gay had two requests of his You Tube audience: Don't do anything unsafe, and no props.
"They have to perform dunks I can do," Gay said Tuesday on ESPN First Take. As for the submissions he's seen so far? "They jump very high ... they get up, it's crazy," Gay said.

Toronto Raptors power forward Chris Bosh has already used YouTube in connection with All-Star Weekend -- and it's one of the reasons he'll be joining Gay in New Orleans. Bosh posted a clip of himself as a Texas car salesman in a bid to get All-Star votes, and though he didn't overtake Kevin Garnett in the voting, he was added to the Eastern Conference team as a reserve.

At first, I liked the idea because he invovles his fans to give him support and come up with ideas for the contest. After watching ESPN over the next following days he got negative feedback from the sport analysts which then influenced my own views. He was seen as not being creative in his own sense and just relying on what other people can do which necessarily doesn;t make him stand out since non-NBA players can also do the same dunk. I believe he had a good idea, but needed to add his own creativity to the dunks since he is a professional athlete.

Check out the video and get an idea of what I was trying to convey. Enjoy!!

Check out his formal request on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3FbX-17iOY

2 comments:

David CHan said...

I was going to post the same article. I never seen it done in college sports so I thought it was unique. It was a good way to market himself for the NBA. I believe that more college players are going to start doing this to market themselves.

Ben Frechette said...

Yeah, I agree, it could also go for even younger kids going into college that may have slipped under the radar. It is a good way to get recruited and gives you a great competitive advantage over someone who does not decide to do this. I know when I was trying to play college soccer I would just bring a video to show my coaches, I don't know if this feature could have been avaliable then and if so I wish I could have capitalized.