Magic in the air: how the slam dunk evolved alongside basketball

The Guardian

05-03-2025

You can still see the moment online, 42 years later: The Philadelphia 76ers' Julius Erving pulling off his January 1983 'rock the cradle' dunk against the Los Angeles Lakers. Yes, Dr. J cradles the ball in his arm as he goes airborne and slams it home over the Lakers' Michael Cooper.
'It's the greatest dunk of all time,' says Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist Mike Sielski.
Sielski has the authority to say so. He is the author of a recently published book, Magic in the Air: The Myth, the Mystery, and the Soul of the Slam Dunk.
Within its pages, you can relive those long-ago highlights from Dr J. The same goes for the epic 1988 NBA Slam Dunk Contest battle between Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins. There's an unforgettable moment from college basketball: Lorenzo Charles dunking to win the 1983 NCAA championship for NC State over Houston and its Phi Slama Jama roster. There are bittersweet moments as well: Gravity-defying stars who, for various reasons, fizzled in the pros (David Thompson) or never made it there at all ('Jumpin'' Jackie Jackson and Earl 'The Goat' Manigault).
The book delves into the origins of dunking and the perhaps unanswerable question of who was the first to dunk. The pioneers include Jack Inglis – who reportedly hung on to the cage surrounding a court and threw the ball into the net – and Bernard Dobbas, who was powerful off the court too: He reportedly slew a mountain lion with his bare hands. There was also the 1936 US Olympian Joe Fortenberry, who hailed from the unconventionally named town of Happy, Texas.
The narrative explores dunking's subsequent appeal to Black players during the civil rights era, when its top practitioners included Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and a UCLA standout named Lew Alcindor. After a sensational sophomore season from the future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the dunk was controversially and mysteriously banned from high school and college play for nearly a decade.
What brought the dunk back in favor? Sielski credits the upstart ABA and its popular slam dunk contest. The ABA-NBA merger brought dunking experts like Dr J into the NBA, while a younger generation, which included Jordan, created new memories in the dunk contest. There is also a chapter on trailblazers in women's basketball – Georgeann Wells, Charlotte Smith and Sylvia Crawley. The book examines the reported decline in dunking today, while noting there are still NBA players who make it an essential part of their game, from to unlikely dunk contest champion Mac McClung.
'I wanted it to be a fun ride, to feel like a journey,' Sielski says, 'where the reader and I journeyed together to different places, different eras, fun stuff about the history of basketball, and stuff tangentially connected to basketball, so you would enjoy the ride.'
The author did a fair amount of journeying for the book, making multiple road trips. Yes, he did travel to Happy, Texas, a suburb of Amarillo. There, he met Oliver Fortenberry, whose late father Joe had played for Team USA at the notorious 1936 Games in Berlin. Sielski got to hold Joe Fortenberry's gold medal. He also got a warning to watch out for rattlesnakes.
Then there was the trip to Raleigh, including a local restaurant with a name honoring the famed NC State coach Jim Valvano – Jimmy V's Osteria and Bar. The score on the wall is always 54-52, the final of the 1983 NCAA championship, decided by Charles's dunk. Sielski also visited Murray State, where Morant parlayed his dunking skills into big-man-on-campus status before leaving college early for the NBA.
Yet there was one journey the author couldn't make – to the offices of the NCAA in Indianapolis. Sielski wanted access to the organization's presidential archives – specifically, with regard to the late NCAA president Walter Byers. Sielski was trying to document why the college (and high school) basketball establishment had banned the dunk from 1967 to 1976.
Sielski points out that 1967 'was a year after Texas Western beat Kentucky for the national championship,' with an all-Black starting five defeating an all-white starting five, 'after Lew Alcindor dominated college basketball in his sophomore season [at UCLA], the only season he could dunk the ball legally. Statistically, it was the best season of his college career. You can't separate that decade [1967-76] and those who tried to keep the sport 'as it should be' from what was going on in society writ large.'
He adds: 'The ultimate act of dominance on a basketball court is to dunk over someone. It was an opportunity for Black men during the 50s, 60s and 70s. In society at large, Black people were fighting for their rightful place and piece of the American Dream.'
Formally, the ban was issued by the National Basketball Committee, a since-disbanded overseeing group for high school and college ball. The NCAA, on the other hand, is very much around, and that's where Sielski made inquiries through email and was dissatisfied with what he received.
'It got to the point where I said: 'Look, if you don't let me see the documents, I'm going to print our email exchange verbatim in the book, everyone can draw their own conclusions,'' he says. 'I haven't heard back from them since.'
Sielski's previous book was on Kobe Bryant. After finishing it, he and his agent were brainstorming ideas for another project. He says he was inspired by his friend and fellow sports journalist Tyler Kepner's book K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches. He admired a book with chapters that could be read either sequentially or randomly and was, regardless, a good read.
'I thought of doing something similar through basketball,' Sielski says. 'The more I thought about big moments and big figures in the sport, they were all connected with the ability to dunk – Jordan, Julius Erving.'
There's an element of mythology to dunking's history, the author notes, including protagonists who were larger than life literally and figuratively, whether through height, wizardry above the rim, or both.
'People like to say Michael Jordan took off from the foul line at the 1988 dunk contest,' Sielski says. 'Or that Julius Erving took off from the foul line at the 1976 ABA dunk contest. They really did not.'
The author laments that the mythmaking and flamboyant play symbolized by dunking has given way to the analytical approach represented by the three-point shot.
'It's so much more analytical,' Sielski says. 'The Celtics take and make the most three-pointers in the league … I think the game is suffering for it.'
He sees an antidote in McClung's wins at the dunk contest. The book notes that McClung's spectacular dunks have gained millions of views online, while tweaking a stereotype summarized in the title of a hit movie: White Men Can't Jump.
'A 6ft 2in white guy, it appears challenging for him,' Sielski says, but adds that McClung can 'jump over a car, do a 540-degree spin' en route to a dunk.
In this, there's a connection to the greats of the past.
'Watching him dunk the ball goes back to that sense of wonder, an appreciation of the athleticism of the athletes, the players who dunked years ago, when it first appeared,' Sielski says.