With fresh Top 7 lists being pulled from the shelves during the holiday season, we dug up a great one crafted by Jason Major a little over a year ago. Enjoy.

All of the big name dunkers from the late 80s and 90s get all of the attention—Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins, Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler, and that one Tom Chambers dunk.  But there are plenty of other dunkers who brought some serious ruckus upon the NBA and college basketball, and even high school, who do not get nearly the credit that they deserve for completely destroying opponents with vicious, disgusting dunks. 

This week’s Top 7 pays tribute to those not-as-oft discussed nasty dunkers.

7. Dominique Wilkins
Yes, he was mentioned in the opening, but GOOD GOD could this guy dunk.  Sometimes you got the feeling that the only reason that he was in the game was so he could try to dunk on someone, and hard.  There are rumors that he would pass to bad teammates or miss shots intentionally solely for the purpose of follow-up dunks.  That is not only awesome, but has to be true.
 



6. Curtis Gates
The 1995 movie “Hoop Dreams” follows two kids as they work their way up through high school, college, and they hope, the NBA.  One of the guys is William Gates, whose brother, Curtis, is interviewed throughout the movie.  At one point, they show highlights of Curtis, and he is dropping dunk after dunk on top of people.  Curtis Gates is not only an underrated dunker, but an incredibly obscure one…though if you have seen “Hoop Dreams,” it is something that you definitely remember.  

5. Ronnie Fields
A three-time Parade All-American in high school, Fields played with Kevin Garnett at Farragut Academy in Chicago his senior year…and they did not even place in the top four at the state tournament.  Fields had such amazing dunks that there was a rumor in southern Illinois that WGN was going to run a half-hour special on him called “Ronnie Fields: The Art of Dunk.”  These are the kinds of things that we discuss in southern Illinois.  He apparently had a 50-inch vertical leap, dunked around 5 to 7 times per game at 6 foot 3, and continues to be an Illinois legend.
 



4. High school Vince Carter
Three of the most famous dunks, ones that were known as some of the toughest to pull off—the between the legs/J.R. Rider dunk, the free throw line dunk, and the bring-the-ball-below-your-waist-and-do-a-two-handed-reverse dunk—and Vince Carter pulled off all three of these in a freaking high school dunk contest.  This was the 1995 McDonald’s All-American dunk contest, and he completely annihilated everyone else in the field.  Bonus—during one of his dunks in the finals, he stared down a cameraman after a dunk for no reason at all.
 



3.Kris Bruton
This guy was completely random, but he came to the 1994 college dunk contest and  completely blew everyone else away, jumping over racks of balls and people, and dunking with Dominique-like authority.  He is currently playing for the Harlem Globetrotters. 

2. Shawn Kemp
Not only was he one of the very best of all-time at ferociously dunking on people before he weighed 650 pounds, but he took rubbing their faces in it to a new level as well, pointing, yelling, staring down, or, in the case of the 1994 World Championships, grabbing his crotch.



1. Early college Vince Carter
Some of my fondest memories involved watching freshman and sophomore North Carolina basketball games with a tub full of Long John Silver’s, hoping that Carter would pull back a two-handed dunk over three guys while screaming at the top of his lungs.



The Top 7 is written by Jason Major.  He screams at the top of his lungs when he windmill jams his Oreo cookies.  Email him at jason@joesportsfan.com

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