FanPost

Flying Czech Air: Why Jan Vesely Should Be In The Slam Dunk Contest

(I have no idea how they choose who get selected, but if they take fan consideration into account, let this be a platform of sorts for his campaign.) 1. Confidence Jan hasn't been close to what he had hoped for when he was drafted. Fouls too often, and just in general doesn't seem like he has it all there. The one thing Jan has been able to do successfully is dunk. He didn't refer to Blake Griffin as "American Jan Vesely" for his health. So, maybe by putting him in a contest where the only thing you do is dunk, Vesely will gain some confidence and perhaps get his head right. 2. Lack of Wizards Representation As we all know, no one on the Wizards got selected for the All-Star Game this year. Or last. Or the year before that. Not since Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler represented the team in New Orleans in '08 have their been any Wizards on an All-Star team. However, it is called All-Star Weekend for a reason. There's also the Rookie-Sophomore Challenge and All-Star Saturday Night. The team has had players in these events, with Wall famously being the last pick in the R-S Challenge last season(after being MVP the year before), and of course, who couldn't forget JaVale and his tricks, all while wearing a jersey with the slate blue "Wizards" script emblazoned on it, in the Slam Dunk Contest two seasons ago. Beal, unless that wrist injury is something horrible, will most likely be in the R-S Challenge this year. But that makes only one Wizard in Houston this year. Where's the fun in that? If the team can't get any guys playing on Sunday, I'd at least like them to have some players doing things on Friday and Saturday. 3. Pride There hasn't exactly been much for us Wizards fans to root for this season. Sure, there was the Heat and Thunder wins, with Beal's game-winner in the latter of those. The 29-point blowout of the Magic where every player could no wrong. Jordan Crawford dropping a game-winner that made it Steeze Giveaway Night in Portland. But after that, the moments where we've been glad to call ourselves Wizards fans have been few in number. I, on occasion, hear Bullets fans talk about how hard they were rooting for Tim Legler to win the Long-Distance Shootout in '96, and how happy they were when he won. Now imagine Jan winning the Slam Dunk Contest. Pretty cool, don't you think? It won't be as awesome as when the Wizards beat the Bulls 4-2 to advance to the second round of the playoffs in '05, or the team getting the #1 pick in a draft that didn't have Kwame Brown, but another reason to shout out "YOU DA MAN! YOU DA MAN!" for the rest of the night can't hurt now, can it? 4. Money/Exposure Look, as of right now, the team isn't drawing many people. Why? Because other then Wall or maybe Beal, why would the average DC sports fan go see a 9-31 team unless LeBron, Durant, Blake Griffin, or Kobe are coming to town? The answer is, they aren't. The Wizards need to get a name your average NBA fan has heard of. But why get one when you could already have another player to draw people to the game? People love the Slam Dunk Contest. If Vesely won, or even had several memorable dunks, there's going to be some people going, "Hey, I'm not much of an NBA or Wizards fan, but I saw that Slam Dunk Contest, and that Jan guy had some crazy dunks. I'd love to go see him live.", or "There's no Caps game tonight, so instead of watching some reality show or sitcom, I'll see if that one European player the Wizards can do some more dunks." I'm not saying Jan Vesely'll turn the Wizards into media darlings if he does well in the Slam Dunk Contest. But the slam dunk is to basketball what fights are to hockey or kickoff returns for a touchdown are to football; attention grabbers that even the most casual fan can't turn away from. If you have a Slam Dunk Contest champion on your roster, that'll certainly grab a few more eyes then you had before.

This represents the view of the user who wrote the FanPost, and not the entire Bullets Forever community. We're a place of many opinions, not just one.