Could Lonnie Walker bring San Antonio Spurs back to the Dunk Contest?

The San Antonio Spurs wing is showing off a bounce that has fans wondering

If you’re like me, you’re part of a generation of San Antonio Spurs fans that have, up until this year, never seen their team miss the playoffs. It’s a blessed fandom, albeit one that the national media has largely ignored for the past twenty-some years.

The San Antonio Spurs have always flown under the radar. They’d get some national attention when pundits would inevitably count them out halfway through the season or when those same pundits were surprised to see them contending for yet another championship, but for large stretches of the regular season, they were mostly left to do their work without much attention paid.

Some of that could do with the type of players that the Spurs front office tends to go after. They don’t sign knuckleheads, players with questionable character or anyone they’re sure isn’t going to fit in. But they also haven’t had too many high flying athletes come through the AT&T Center. Until now.

Lonnie Walker is unquestionable “dunk contest material”

In all my years as a Spurs fan, I’ve never seen a player suit up for the team who has as much bounce as Lonnie Walker. This isn’t a shot at any of the greats. Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and even Boris Diaw were all otherworldy athletes in their own right. But none of them could levitate quite as Lonnie can.

Do you remember the sequence from Walker’s rookie season where he almost dunked the life out of Paul Millsap? The Denver Nuggets bench sat their, jaws nearly on the floor, astounded that the bouncy rookie could get up so high. It’s now one of my favorite videos.

Now Lonnie is back in the gym and showing off his bounce yet again.

https://twitter.com/JeffGSpursZone/status/1300545863337627659

He makes a move that 99 percent of humanity could never do look so incredibly effortless. Just a few gather steps and the levitate and hammer it home. This recent clip has some San Antonio Spurs fans, myself included, calling for Lonnie to make a run at the Slam Dunk Contest this year.

Do you know who the last San Antonio Spur was to take part in the Dunk Contest? It was Greg Anderson all the way back in the 1988 Dunk Contest that is much better known for the showdown between Dominique Wilkins and Michael Jordan. We’ve gone over 30 years without seeing another Spur in the contest, it’s time for that to change.

The San Antonio Spurs are undergoing a transformative change. These new Spurs aren’t the same team that we’ve gotten so used to seeing. They’re younger, faster – they played at the 4th fastest pace in the league during the restart – and they’re ready to dunk on everyone. What better way to announce the new look Spurs to the rest of the league than by starting what might be the earliest campaign to get our best athlete into the Dunk Contest?

So consider this the kick off of the “Get Lonnie Walker to the 2021 Dunk Contest” campaign. Bit of a mouthful but we’ll work on the name as we go. #LetLonnieDunk