Cleveland Cavaliers forward Larry Nance Jr. has been selected as a participant in this season’s NBA Slam Dunk Contest, and it sounds like he has a solid plan of attack.
Nance Jr., now 25 years of age, is the son of former Cavs great Larry Nance Sr. If you’re an NBA history buff, you’ll know that Sr. won the NBA’s first Slam Dunk Contest in 1984, besting Julius Erving and Dominique Wilkins.
Via Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com:
“Make the first one,” Nance Jr. said was the advice from pops. “Just make your dunk. I don’t want to be that guy that’s out there missing.”
Nance Jr. tells Cleveland.com that he has prepared his first and fourth dunks for Saturday night, but is still working on dunks two and three. The 6-9 power forward also hinted that a “prop” could come into play.
Whether the Dunk Contest stars will align properly for Nance Jr. on Saturday night remains to be seen, but he says he’d love to pair the trophy with the one his father won.
“Sit around the house with my fiance, like ‘ how cool would it be,'” Nance Jr. said. “Like at home we’d have mine (dunk contest trophy) next to his, we’d be able to hold them up and take a picture. We’ve talked about it and stuff like that.
“Like I said, I’m just excited to get the opportunity to try,” Nance Jr. said in closing.
A lot of people are pulling for Nance Jr., including his coach and teammates.
“His dad won it, he’s a high-flyer, he has a lot of tricky stuff,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said. “I wish him luck, I hope he can win it.”
“Well, he’s my teammate, so I’m definitely rooting for him,” LeBron James added. “Oladipo is my teammate (in the All-Star Game) too, right? Team LeBron, huh? I’m taking those two.”
The Verizon Slam Dunk Contest will be held inside the Staples Center on Saturday, Feb. 17. For a full schedule of this season’s All-Star festivities, head over to NBA.com.