A Q&A with Kevin Garnett is never dull, and his latest revealed that there was a damn dunk bounty out on Yao Ming. In an interview with Yahoo’s Alex Wong, Garnett revealed that the 2000 Team USA Olympic team wagered $1 million to the first guy to dunk over the Chinese skyscraper.
Kevin Garnett says the 2000 U.S. Olympic team had a $1 million prize for dunking on Yao Ming
Nobody got it, but this perhaps inspired that famous Vince Carter slam on Frederic Weis.
Photo by: Stephen Dunn/Getty Images
Garnett: First of all, people didn’t know, we had a bounty out on Yao Ming. The whole USA team had a bet. We had a million dollar bet on who was going to be the first person to dunk on Yao Ming. None of us did. We all tried to dunk on Yao, but he would block it or we would miss.
Nobody succeeded in dunking on Ming, a 7’6 shot-blocking tower, during Team USA’s 119-72 preliminary round, but Vince Carter came closest by way of throwing down that famous slam over 7’2 Frederic Weis.
“The first thing I thought of when I saw Vince dunk over Frederic was ‘oh shit,’” Garnett said. “‘You won the million dollars.’ But then I realized it obviously wasn’t Yao. I pushed Vince, and if you look at the clip, he almost punches me in the face by accident. But my first thought was, ‘oh shit, you won, you got the million.’”
It might not have happened during the Olympics, but at least 10 NBA players were able to successfully dunk on Ming during his Rockets career. That includes Luol Deng, Antonio Daniels, Carmelo Anthony, Josh Childress, Devean George, Kobe Bryant, Dahntay Jones, Manu Ginobili, and Andre Iguodala.
No extra money for them, though.
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