[TruBluKentuckian]

"Kareem Abdul-Jabbar invented the SLAM DUNK! Magic Johnson perferced it."

Have to disagree with that.

The "slam dunk" had been around for a long long time before Jabbar ever stepped on a court. Wilt Chamberlain, in the late 50's, used to run and jump from the free throw line and dunk his FREE THROWS! Of course, they soon outlawed that. Elgin Baylor used the dunk as a weapon in the 50's too. If anybody ever saw Connie Hawkins in his prime during the 60's you know that he was the best dunker ever and the precursor to the Michael Jordan/Julius Erving type of artistic dunkers. Magic Johnson was a very average dunker and really didn't dunk all that much.

[Skooz]

LOL! Wilt rewrote the rule book.

My favorite "dunker" of all time is James Worthy. His entire body would freeze as he sailed toward the basket. Nothing fancy, no wacky moves, just simply unstoppable.

[dogbyte12]

Actually, the "slam dunk" had been around for awhile. The reason some people credit it to Kareem, is simply because the term was coined first by the Lakers announcer Chick Hearn.

He came up with the phrase while Kareem played with the Lakers, and it caught on. Kareem certainly wasn't the first to do it, but props out to Chick Hearn, who just passed last year, who was one of the best sports announcers that exist. L.A. was way too blessed to have both Chick Hearn on basketball and Vin Scully doing baseball at the same time.