Ben McLemore boldly inserted himself into the immortal halls of basketball boneheadedness with a failed 360 dunk attempt in the second quarter of the Grizzlies’ game against the Raptors two days ago. A lot of people were quick to jump of McLemore for hotdogging in a game that was by no means over, and I probably would feel the same way as a Grizzlies fan, but you have to agree with me that an in-game 360 dunk, in the flow of a fastbreak, with defenders nearby (as opposed to an uncontested runout) would be a nearly unparallelled occurrence as well as being hella awesome.
It’s nice to see that the torrents of criticism unleashed upon McLemore had little to no effect on his confidence levels for this game: he came out shooting and looked like the three-point bomber we all expected (expect?) him to become. He’s still only 24 years old, younger than Malcolm Brodgon for example, so there’s still time for him to put it together and become Baby Ray Allen.
Except, you know, did Ray Allen even ever try to complete a 360 slam dunk even in his athletic prime? No. So, by my calculations, McLemore’s ceiling is actually higher tha prime Ray Allen.