I went to Wednesday night's game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Boston Celtics with a friend of mine from back east. She grew up in Boston in the eighties, and her last name is Bird, so yeah, pretty much, she's a Celtics fan. (She's also a Pats and Sox fan, so your typical Masshole regarding sports, but nice enough as long as you stay away from that subject.)
She had never been to a Clippers game and never watched the Celtics outside of Massachusetts, so when I asked her if she wanted to go to a game this season, she immediately circled January 8 on her calendar.
When the Clippers went on a 18-0 first quarter run, she got a little quiet. But the Celtics came back to make a game of it, and we had a good time talking some trash back and forth the rest of the way. And then it happened.
Now, while she likes all things Boston, she's not the most active NBA fan. So while she was well aware that Doc Rivers was now coaching the Clippers, she was quite surprised to see Kris Humphries wearing green. And don't ask how she knew who Kris Humphries was, because you already know the answer.
Obviously the STAPLES Center crowd exploded when Blake Griffin posterized the erstwhile Kardashian. Surely I can't be the first person to dub this dunk the Humpty Hump? She got very quiet once again. To cheer her up, I explained to her how historic this all was. That while she surely knew that Griffin was famous for his dunks and appeared on Sports Center almost nightly with one monster or another, that she had just witnessed something special. In her first-ever Clippers game, she had seen one of the great dunks of all time. She took very little solace in this information.
Personally, while I may personally prefer some lob dunks even more, those are usually victimless crimes, and people love a little drama in their dunks, maybe a murder to investigate.
So where does the Humpty Hump rank? For me, it's at the very top of the list. Mozgov was just an obstacle; like the steppes of central Asia, he stood there as Blake rose up and up and up. The Perk was amazing because Kendrick clearly doesn't like being dunked on, and he tried to do something about it, but just got there too late.
Humphries was a different story. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong guy. He knew there was nothing he could do, but he realized it too late. Blake has given a whole lot of guys posterphobia over the last four years, and when they can, they just run away before the shutter clicks. Unlike Mozgov and Perkins, who stood in with pride and took their medicine, Kim's Ex literally cowered; it's the combination of what Blake did and the "please don't hurt me" look on Humphries face that makes this the best Griffin poster ever, in my opinion.
Notice also in the side by side that while Blake didn't bother to even glance at Mozgov or Perkins, he did give Humphries a disdainful stare. These guys have a history -- Humphries has had some big games against Blake and bested him on a couple of occasions, not to mention delivering a few hard fouls. I can't say for certain, but it seems to me that Griffin enjoyed this one a bit more. Maybe a lot more
It's been almost two full years since the Perk. There have been plenty of great Griffin dunks in the interim, but this Mozgov-type dunk has become so iconic that we clearly missed having one for so long. And for me, this was the best of the three. Then again, he couldn't have picked a better victim.