Mike Powell (long jump world record holder) got me thinking....

[pauk]

You never practiced sports in your life obviously, but it's ok you can fantasize all you want.

The only fantasy here is you thinking you know me... and that is even more obvious...

I think i have done a fair share of long jumping (with or without a basketball lol), more than enough to understand the mechanics...

Yes its true that a basketball would bottleneck the result to a tiny degree, but i am even more sure its not true that it would have such a huge negative impact as you are trying to imply.......

...and who said you have to have the ball in your hands to do a dunk anyways? Alleyoop? :)

[Tmuston Beltics]

would that be a 3 pt dunk?

[pauk]

For me the biggest problem here is not knowing how high he could get up while maintaining max distance because as you maybe know long jumping is more about distance than vertical/high jumping.... logically a long jumper can jump higher up if he focused all his power on only trying to get as high up as possible instead of as far forward as possible up and vice versa...

[CeltsGarlic]

alley oop is other option

[La Frescobaldi]

If I remember they tested this guy for every drug known to man and some they use on horses and they never found anything.

Dude could just naturally.... FLY

[Sarcastic]

I'd like to see Javier Sotomayor dunk in his prime. He's the only person to ever clear 8 feet in the high jump.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javier_Sotomayor

[Hittin_Shots]

Noones mentioned the landing yet.

[LeFraud James]

the force needed from a horizontal jump to a vertical jump increases exponentially. and as a poster has said, arm swinging helps in propelling a long jumper further. add the difficulty of handling a ball without losing it, and the degree of difficulty of making that dunk rises.

doing this in game is virtually impossible. doing it in a dunk contest, yes. on the moon.

Congrats on finally posting something that doesn't reek of incompetence.

[LJJ]

That man was on some serious dope.

[CavaliersFTW]

There's also this incredible jump (29 feet 2.5") done in 1968 by Bob Beamon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEt_Xgg8dzc

And to several people talking about dunking/etc
*Dwight's max reach is not the top of the backboard, it is 6" below the top of the backboard (someone brought this up on page 1).
*In order for athletes to perform spectacular dunks you can not just have a good vertical, you also MUST have the appropriate body length (standing reach etc), and timing. These long jumpers might have good length but they also might not, either way I don't think we should assume these athletes would be 3 point dunking or anything ridiculous like that, the timing and length required to pull off the types of "theoretical" dunks you can speculate based off their long jump records would f*ck up their entire approaches and penultimate steps, and the only reason these guys have their records to begin with is because of nearly perfect approaches (however many steps they require) and nearly perfect penultimate steps. Even the motion they do in the air is 100% necessary to extend the distance of their jump. You can't do any of that stuff with a basketball in your hand and basketball shoes on a hardwood floor and expect to jump like how they jumped. The key to their long jumps wasn't just athleticism, it was precise execution of a specific sequence of events that they had practiced religiously for years in order to maximize jumping distance. Oh, and it also helps to land in a pit of soft sand.

[dunksby]

The only fantasy here is you thinking you know me... and that is even more obvious...

I think i have done a fair share of long jumping (with or without a basketball lol), more than enough to understand the mechanics...

Yes its true that a basketball would bottleneck the result to a tiny degree, but i am even more sure its not true that it would have such a huge negative impact as you are trying to imply.......

...and who said you have to have the ball in your hands to do a dunk anyways? Alleyoop? :)

I don't have to know you, I can deduce from your clueless posts that the closest thing to practicing sports you ever done has been the occasional running after your school bus.

[LeFraud James]

I don't have to know you, I can deduce from your clueless posts that the closest thing to practicing sports you ever done has been the occasional running after your school bus.

I doubt he had to do much running, since they make sure to strap everyone in and do a head count before the short bus leaves.

[FKAri]

Surprise, surprise. There are athletes in other sports. Not just in our tiny secluded world of basketball.

[KG215]

Yes its true that a basketball would bottleneck the result to a tiny degree, but i am even more sure its not true that it would have such a huge negative impact as you are trying to imply.......

Yes, it would.

[millwad]

There's also this incredible jump (29 feet 2.5") done in 1968 by Bob Beamon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEt_Xgg8dzc

And to several people talking about dunking/etc
*Dwight's max reach is not the top of the backboard, it is 6" below the top of the backboard (someone brought this up on page 1).
*In order for athletes to perform spectacular dunks you can not just have a good vertical, you also MUST have the appropriate body length (standing reach etc), and timing. These long jumpers might have good length but they also might not, either way I don't think we should assume these athletes would be 3 point dunking or anything ridiculous like that, the timing and length required to pull off the types of "theoretical" dunks you can speculate based off their long jump records would f*ck up their entire approaches and penultimate steps, and the only reason these guys have their records to begin with is because of nearly perfect approaches (however many steps they require) and nearly perfect penultimate steps. Even the motion they do in the air is 100% necessary to extend the distance of their jump. You can't do any of that stuff with a basketball in your hand and basketball shoes on a hardwood floor and expect to jump like how they jumped. The key to their long jumps wasn't just athleticism, it was precise execution of a specific sequence of events that they had practiced religiously for years in order to maximize jumping distance. Oh, and it also helps to land in a pit of soft sand.

Thank you for mentioning Beamon, I used to love athletics and especially the jump events like long jump and high jump. Beamon to me has the GOAT long jump, before high-tech shoes, before great tracks and before modern training.

By the way, long jump is a shitty event, I hate the white board bogus. It should be about who the athlete is who can make the longest jump, not the athlete who can jump closest from a shitty white board.

And the legendary Ivan Pedroso was damn unlucky;

Despite his great success in the World Championships, due to injuries, he did not make a great impact on the Olympic Games like former rival Carl Lewis. He did finish 4th at the age of 19 in Barcelona 1992, but in Atlanta 1996 he had injury troubles and could only finish 12th in the long jump final. In the 2000 Olympics (Sydney), Pedroso spectacularly won the gold medal with his last jump. In a tough contest at the 2004 Olympics, he finished 7th. Pedroso has not entered in any major championships since, although he still had several jumps over 8 metres.