Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan submitted an early entry for the dunk of the 2016-17 NBA season with a monster jam all over Tristan Thompson.
By all rights, Tristan Thompson has had a very good life. He was the fourth pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, he earned a five-year, $82 million contract extension a summer ago and he helped the Cleveland Cavaliers beat a 73-win juggernaut in the Finals to bring the franchise its first ever championship.
But sometimes bad things happen to good people, and that’s exactly what happened when Toronto Raptors shooting guard DeMar DeRozan jammed all over his face Friday night.
In a rematch of the Eastern Conference Finals, Cleveland came into the same building where they eliminated Toronto in Game 6 last summer. They build an early lead, but the Raptors battled back from the deficit and trailed 91-89 with about a minute and a half to play.
At that point, DeRozan got the step on his man thanks to a miscommunication between LeBron James and J.R. Smith, drove the lane, and reminded the entire world why the hashtag #RIPVine is the saddest thing to happen to NBA Twitter this year:
Here’s another look, because a dunk like this really calls for every angle possible:
There was really nothing Thompson could do. DeRozan has put plenty of talented rim protectors on posters before, including Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz. The All-Star shooting guard was also in the middle of another high scoring night, finishing the game with 32 points on 12-of-28 shooting.
This outburst came just a few nights after dropping 40 in the team’s season opener.
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Unfortunately for Toronto, that would be their last basket of the game. The Cavs escaped with the 94-91 victory on the road thanks to Kyrie Irving’s late three-pointer, once again beating the Raptors in their own building.
Still, DeRozan’s thunderous dunk was the play of the game and an early candidate for Dunk of the Year.
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As always, the lesson is this: You can do everything right in this world, but once you start dating a Kardashian, all bets are off.