14
QUEENS WEEKLY, FEB. 24, 2019
Queens product crowned NBA Slam Dunk champion
BY ZACH GEWELB
Queens product Hamidou
Diallo has made quite
an impression during the
NBA All-Star weekend in
North Carolina.
The Oklahoma City
Thunder rookie guard won
the Slam Dunk contest Saturday
at the Spectrum Center
in Charlotte with one of
the more memorable performances
in recent years,
sealing his victory with an
incredible dunk over NBA
legend Shaquille O’Neal to
dispatch New York Knicks
guard Dennis Smith Jr. in
the final round.
“It was great,” Diallo
said of winning the competition.
“Dennis stole my
third dunk. I was going to
use D-Wade last. That was
my favorite player growing
up. But it all worked out.”
Wearing a Superman
shirt underneath his jersey
to pay tribute to Shaq, Diallo
— a Corona native who
starred for John Bowne
High School — threw down
a slam after jumping over
the 7-foot-1 Hall of Famer
and then hung on the rim
by his elbow.
“Yeah, I was sure,” Diallo
said of whether he knew he
could dunk over O’Neal. “I
wouldn’t have brought him
out there if I wasn’t sure.”
Diallo tallied 98 points
— the highest total in the
first round — notching 48
points on his first dunk and
50 on his second.
In the second round, he
recorded scores of 43 and
45 on his two dunks, respectively,
while Smith Jr.
notched 35 and 50 points on
his slams.
Diallo was selected by the
Brooklyn Nets with the 45th
pick of the 2018 NBA Draft,
only to be shipped to Oklahoma
City in a draft night
trade with the Thunder.
Diallo had originally
considered declaring for
the 2017 draft before backing
out at the last moment.
After opting out of the 2017
draft, Diallo focused all his
energy on improving his
game at Kentucky under
head coach John Calipari.
Diallo, a 6-foot-5 shooting
guard, had an up-anddown
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season for Kentucky,
shooting 33.8 percent from
3-point range and converting
just 61.6 percent of his
free-throw attempts. He
spent much of the spring
semester stuck in a deep
slump that saw him fail
to reach double digits in
points in 13 of Kentucky’s
final 16 games.
But it wasn’t all bad. He
showed a few glimpses of his
potential down the stretch,
including a 22-point performance
on 9-of-12 shooting
while playing stellar defense
in an NCAA Tournament
win over Buffalo.
In his high school days,
Diallo helped lead the 2016
USA Basketball Men’s U18
National Team to a gold
medal at the 2016 International
Basketball Federation
Americas U18 Championship
in Valdivia, Chile.
He scored 14 points in
the final game of the tournament,
a 99-84 win over
Canada, as Team USA finished
with a perfect 5-0 on
the court against worldclass
competition.
Diallo is currently averaging
4.2 points and 47
percent shooting in his
rookie campaign with
the Thunder.
Reach editor Zach Gewelb
by e-mail at zgewelb@schnepsmedia.
com or by phone
at (718) 260–4539.
Corona native Hamidou Diallo, seen here in his high school days, was crowned champion of the
NBA’s Slam Dunk contest during All-Star Weekend in Charlotte. File Photo/AP
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